The Idea of You (2024)
Making a good romantic comedy is incredibly difficult - way harder than people give the genre credit for. You need chemistry that actually sparks on screen, a plot that doesn't collapse the second you poke at it, jokes that land without undercutting the emotional stakes, and an ending that feels earned instead of just contractually obligated. Most attempts flame out on at least one of those fronts. Think about how many romcoms lean on a "big misunderstanding" that could be solved with one honest conversation, or a meet-cute so contrived it never recovers, or two leads with zero real chemistry that the script just insists is happening.
Solène (Anne Hathaway), a 40-something divorced gallery owner in LA, ends up chaperoning her teen daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) and friends to Coachella after her ex-husband (Reid Scott) bails last minute - and accidentally walks into the trailer of Hayes Campbell (Hayes Campbell), the 24-year-old heartthrob from boy band August Moon, sparking an instant, awkward-because-of-the-age-gap attraction. He tracks her down after the festival, shows up at her gallery, buys out her show, and the two grow close despite her hesitation, eventually sleeping together in New York and her joining him on tour across Europe while keeping the relationship secret. Things fall apart when she starts feeling insecure around younger women on tour and learns (or believes) his romantic gestures are just a pattern with him, so she flees home - only for the relationship to go public anyway, unleashing brutal ageist/sexist backlash online. Izzy eventually forgives her mom for hiding it and even nudges her back toward Hayes, they go public and delete their socials, but pressure over Izzy's well-being pushes them to break up again - until Hayes shows up one more time, they admit they're in love, and agree to pause things for five years until Izzy's finished school. The film closes five years later with Izzy off at college and Solène and Hayes finally reuniting for good at her gallery.
There are so many moments in this film where it could have gone completely sideways or taken the easy way out. And, at more than a few moments, it felt doomed to go that direction. For one, the meet-cute feels really contrived and borderline lazy - stumbling into the wrong trailer at Coachella is the kind of setup that asks you to just go with it rather than earning your buy-in. Hathaway's natural charm saves a TON of issues I have with this film, biggest of which is how hollow Galitzine comes off at times. I don't entirely buy his delivery when he is trying to be vulnerable, so when he laments his lack of a life since he joined the band, it feels a little too artificial, like he's reciting the sentiment rather than feeling it. That's not to say the relationship doesn't feel believable. It actually holds some weight, though a huge chunk of it is essentially montages of the two of them making out, which does a lot of heavy lifting the script probably should've been doing instead.
But, on the plus side, it does tackle some honest things in honest ways. The beauty of having half of this relationship be a person who has been truly misled before (not just high school misled, but marriage-affair-divorce misled) means, despite her danger of reverting back to "starry-eyed lovesick idiot," she keeps a good head on her shoulders and doesn't get swept up quite so easily when she sees the damage it is doing to her daughter and her friends. That's a level of self-awareness you don't often get from the lead in this genre, and it's part of what keeps the film from tipping all the way into fantasy.
While the ending sort of undoes a lot of the good stuff, what is most admirable to me is how it reckons with reality in the world of the romcom. So many of these movies end with an unreasonable, gushy solution, whether it's Julia Roberts standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her (not great) or a flight to Vegas with help from Billy Idol (great). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It all hinges on how those characters got there. Here, the film seems to understand that love and desire don't really fix our terrible society. Is it unfortunate that Hayes and Solène can't ride off into the sunset without any worries and pursue their love? Sure. But, as difficult as it may be, considering all the external factors, ending (or postponing) the relationship is the right thing to do. Sometimes life gets in the way and, as much as it hurts to hear it, that's how it has to be.
And not to be a stickler, but remember: just because you like a movie doesn't make it objectively "good." Romcoms tend to be the home of a lot of people's "guilty pleasures" - movies people will defend to the death even while admitting the writing is thin, the plot makes no sense, or the characters are barely people. That's fine! Enjoyment is allowed to be uncomplicated. But loving something and it being well-crafted are two different conversations, and it's worth being honest with yourself about which one you're having.
3.5 out of 5 Stars
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