The Idea of You review: 'impossible escapism' starring Anne Hathaway
Steamy romcom about a 40-year-old who falls for a boy band singer

"Anne Hathaway's career in Hollywood began 23 years ago" in a film that dramatised a classic teenage girl fantasy, said Johnny Oleksinski in the New York Post: in "The Princess Diaries", she played a geeky young woman who discovers she is actually royalty.
Now, Hathaway has delivered "a second dose of impossible escapism with 'The Idea of You'", a steamy Amazon Prime romcom in which she stars as Solène, a 40-year-old single mother who falls for Hayes, a 24-year-old pop star. Solène meets this Harry Styles-type character (Nicholas Galitzine), when she takes her daughter to Coachella, and stumbles into his trailer backstage, having mistaken it for a VIP toilet. "Sparks fly", but she then flees and he has to track her down to the art gallery she runs in Los Angeles, thus setting in motion an unlikely "celeb-and-normie courtship".
The film has bundles of charm, a "smart script" and succeeds in large part thanks to Hathaway's very "human" performance. Hathaway and Galitzine do have chemistry, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail, but the story is "uneven" and "laughably predictable", providing "loads of 'rom'" and not enough "'com'". It might have been better, too, if Hathaway looked more credibly middle-aged. "As it is, she is beyond radiant, gleaming a lot brighter than all the younger females around her. So it's no great surprise that Hayes goes weak at the knees" for her.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
This "ghastly" film was adapted from a "'mummy porn' novel" by the US writer Robinne Lee, and it throbs with "intense 'fan fiction' energy", said Kevin Maher in The Times. If you were being kind, you might say there were hints here of "Notting Hill" or "Roman Holiday". But you're most likely to just wish you could demand your two hours back.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
What's going on with the Beckhams?
In the Spotlight From wedding tantrums to birthday snubs, rumours of a family rift are becoming harder to hide
-
Interest rate cut: the winners and losers
The Explainer The Bank of England's rate cut is not good news for everyone
-
Quiz of The Week: 3 – 9 May
Have you been paying attention to The Week's news?
-
6 charming homes in Rhode Island
Feature Featuring an award-winning home on Block Island and a casket-making-company-turned-condo in Providence
-
Titus Andronicus: a 'beautiful, blood-soaked nightmare'
The Week Recommends Max Webster's staging of Shakespeare's tragedy 'glitters with poetic richness'
-
The Alienation Effect: a 'compelling' study of the émigrés who reshaped postwar Britain
The Week Recommends Owen Hatherley's 'monumental' study is brimming with 'extraordinary revelations'
-
The Four Seasons: 'moving and funny' show stars Steve Carell and Tina Fey
The Week Recommends Netflix series follows three affluent mid-50s couples on a mini-break and the drama that ensues
-
Thunderbolts*: Florence Pugh stars in 'super-silly' yet 'terrific' film
The Week Recommends This is a Marvel movie with a difference, featuring an 'ill-matched squad of antiheroes'
-
Nashville dining: Far more than barbecue and hot chicken
Feature A modern approach to fine-dining, a daily-changing menu, and more
-
Music Reviews: Coco Jones and Viagra Boys
Feature "Why Not More?" and "Viagr Aboys"
-
Art review: "Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes From Art"
Feature At the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, through Aug. 17