Once the steamy hotel-room encounters come in The Idea of You, the movie has, if not swept you away, then at least ushered you along on a European trip of sex and room service. At the same time, it stays faithful to its central mission of celebrating middle-aged womanhood. The relationship will eventually cause a social media firestorm, but its main pressure point is whether Solène can stick with Hayes after her ex-husband (Reid Scott) cheated on her. This is a fairy tale she deserves.
While Showalter (The Big Sick) has long showed a great gift for juggling comedy and drama at once, The Idea of You leans more fully into wish-fulfillment romance. That can leave less to sustain the film, which has notably neutered some of the things that distinguished the book.
The May-December romance has been shrunk a little. In the book, the singer is 20. Given that Galitzine is 29 and the 41-year-old Hathaway is no one’s idea of old, this is more like a July-September relationship. In the book, the daughter (Ella Rubin) is a huge admirer of the pop singer, adding to the awkwardness, but in the movie, August Moon is “so 7th grade” to her.
There are surely more interesting and funnier places The Idea of You could have gone. But Hathaway and Galitzine are a good enough match that, for a couple hours, it’s easy to forget.