The Idea of You: Movie Review

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Nicholas Galitzine, Ella Rubin, Reid Scott
Director: Michael Showalter

Prime Video's latest movie slice manages to slightly eviscerate the perception of the romantic comedy as fluff.

Adapted from Robinne Lee's book, it's the story of Solene (Hathaway, avoiding the kookiness of the genre) who's forced to escort her daughter (Rubin) to Coachella when her former husband (Scott) drops out last minute.

Corralled into a meet-and-greet with boyband August Moon, Solene finds an attraction to singer Hayes Campbell (Galitzine). Intrigued, the pair form a tentative relationship that builds against Solene's wishes.

While the second half of the film falls into the obvious pitfalls of becoming more serious and solemn as the ramifications of their relationship bubble up to the surface, large swathes of The Idea Of You are to be commended for shaking up the genre.

Whether it's choosing not to play Solene as a ditz or channeling real-life insecurities over body image around younger women, there's a lived in quality to The Idea of You that lends the film a degree of credibility where typically there would be none.

The initial meet-cute shows off the attraction of the pair, and while some of the more outrageous edges of the narrative come to the fore as quirks, there's a lot of The Idea of You that feels real, human and relatable.

It helps that Hathaway underplays her role and distracts from some edges of the story that feel underexplored and underutilised.

The Idea of You doesn't majorly reinvent the wheel - it's a little too safe to do that, and its ending feels like fan fiction more than it should, but thanks to two leads that have an easy-going charm, it's eminently more watchable than it has any right to be.

The Idea of You streams on Prime Video from May 2.