'The Idea Of You' Is Not As Good As The Bold And Sexy Love Story In The Book

It’s easy to be swept away by the idea of “The Idea of You,” the new romantic comedy starring Anne Hathaway as divorced mom and gallery owner Solène Marchand and Nicholas Galitzine as British boy band megastar Hayes Campbell. A celebrity falling for a non-famous person is a trope as old as time, or at least as old as Hollywood, and this film gives it a fresh update through its adaptation of Robinne Lee’s super-spicy 2017 novel.

The twist in both the book and the movie is the age gap.

Solène is a mom who just turned 40. Hayes is 24. The reversal of the older-man, younger-woman relationship and the promise of Hathaway as a globe-trotting mom having a sexual awakening (as well as her on-screen chemistry with Galitzine) have created significant buzz for the movie. The trailer broke the record for most-watched trailer for a streaming movie.

This level of anticipation makes sense. The escapist plot, high-profile casting and promise of steamy love scenes are the ingredients of a standout rom-com, but this movie does not live up to its idea, and there’s a chance it will leave you more than a little underwhelmed, especially if you’re a fan of the book.

The movie softens the book to make Hathaway’s character more accessible. Instead of a Range Rover, Solène drives a Subaru. Instead of a midcentury modern house in the hills, overlooking the ocean, she lives in a cozy bungalow that her pretentious ex-husband refers to as a starter home. Instead of leaving her husband because he didn’t support her career ambitions, Daniel (Reid Scott) cheats on her with a much younger woman. The effect, as Julie Miller describes in Hathaway’s April cover story for Vanity Fair, is that “Solène is less tony and more relatable.”

Discrepancies