There are lithe, low-level pleasures to be had in the glossy pop romance The Idea of You, Amazon’s latest attempt to turn a fanfic fave into a broadly alluring date movie. It follows last year’s Red, White and Royal Blue, a smartphone screen adaptation of Casey McQuiston’s what-if gay romp. In that film, it was the fantasy of a president’s son and an English prince. Here it’s a 40-year-old mum and a Harry Styles-level pop star, a blogpost daydream of love and lust, played out with both jostling for space.
It’s a far sleeker and far more satisfying package than the former, illuminated by the genuine movie star power of Anne Hathaway and made with a higher level of craft, from the sturdy studio-level direction of Michael Showalter to a mostly smooth-going script. The romcom genre has allegedly been “back” for a while now but that’s mostly translated to quantity over quality and while last year’s sleeper smash Anyone But You might have looked the part, it was cursed with junky dialogue, hapless plotting and a disastrously ill-fitting leading lady. With Hathaway at its centre, The Idea of You is on far surer footing, in small moments almost threatening to be something far greater but settling into being perfectly acceptable instead, a plane movie par excellence.
Actor-turned-novelist Lee was inspired to write the book while crushing on a YouTube video of a boyband, imagining what her life would be like if she ended up running away with him on tour (Styles fans later claimed it as their own although Lee denies he was the primary target). Solène (Hathaway) is turning 40 and while she runs a successful gallery in Los Angeles, she’s still bruised from her ex-husband’s cruel infidelity and the inevitable divorce that followed.
At the point when Solène's ex lets her and high school girl Izzy (Ella Rubin) down once more, she is compelled to step in and trade her performance climbing trip for a few days of keeping an eye on Coachella. While there she meets Hayes (Nicholas Galitzine), the really young looking lead artist of featuring band August Moon. A moment association transforms into an impossible sentiment as Solène surrenders to the hurricane.
It's not difficult to see the reason why the source material burst into flames with perusers, a comparative combo of lux fantasy sentiment and masturbatory wish satisfaction to Fifty Shades (Lee concedes she got counsel from EL James). It's not as unusual and the film, as indicated by fanatics, isn't exactly essentially as express as the book, yet it's a romcom with a consciousness of how significant sex can be and how the complexities of how we communicate physically can assist with characterizing a relationship. The age hole has been fairly smoothed from the book with Hayes presently being 24 as opposed to 20 yet it's as yet a main driver of concern and struggle in the story, Solène made hyper-mindful of how she's seen by everyone around him and, in the long run, the more noteworthy public.
Hathaway's flawless charm is with the end goal that it leads us not to ask why a 24-year-old could-have-anybody heart breaker would be so exceptionally taken by an unfamous lady mature enough to be his mom and more to consider what 24-year-old wouldn't. The film momentarily addresses issues of sexism and ageism yet, without a doubt, gently, Solène's life situated in nearly as much dream as that of Hayes (her home is basically as unspoiled as the lodgings she's whisked away to). The content, from Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt, may be composed with more thought than one has generally expected from a streaming romcom - the low bar has implied that discourse that pretty much seems OK is cause for commendation - yet enough so one then, at that point, begins to anticipate a tiny bit of spot more surface. Solène and Hayes are both excessively groggily built to at any point feel like genuine individuals and there's such little interest in some other person in the film that, similar to a real dream, it very well may be excessively firmly engaged.
There's presumably a stunt being missed with this one, films being skipped for a heedlessly jump into spilling all things being equal. Working with what has all the earmarks of being a somewhat sizable financial plan for the class, getting us numerous areas, Showalter figures out how to make THE IDEA OF YOU look and inhale like the more fabulous movies it comes after rather then the tinnier ones it sits close by. Hathaway, getting back to the sort of warm solace food seeing many actually know and love her for, is a convincing lead of extensive, seldom paired engage, adding more substance to a film that frequently painfully needs it. Furthermore, with Galitzine, a more conceivable pop star than he was a sovereign in Red, White and Regal Blue, there is sufficient power to drive us through some in any case underpowered patches (it helps too that the film's phony music is sufficiently able to cause us to trust it). It's all not decisively enough to genuinely ship us back to the class' prime however it's a damn sight better compared to what we've been compelled to become acclimated to.
THE IDEA OF YOU is presently accessible on Amazon Prime !!
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