'The Idea of You' review: Young singer, older woman click in rom-com

One supposes it would have been TOO spot-on to have the leads in the sparkling and delightful and utterly fantastical “The Idea of You” actually walk hand-in-hand through a certain district in West London, but the similarities between this gem and the 1999 classic “Notting Hill” are inescapable — albeit with a gender reversal.

In “Notting Hill,” Julia Roberts’ Anna Scott is a superstar American actress who falls in love with the unassuming and anonymous Brit William Thacker (Hugh Grant), who runs a small travel bookstore and has an apartment with a blue door. Complications ensue, in large part due to the paparazzi and the tabloids hounding their every move.

In “The Idea of You,” Nicholas Galitzine’s Hayes Campbell is a British pop star who falls in love with the unassuming and anonymous American Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway), who runs a small art gallery with a red-framed door in L.A.'s hipster Silver Lake neighborhood. Complications ensue, in large part due to the paparazzi and the tabloids hounding their every move.

It was a magical formula in 1999 and it’s a magical formula 25 years later, with Hathaway looking every inch the gorgeous movie star and giving one of her most endearing performances, and Galitzine taking a borderline ridiculous role and making something genuine out of it. Adapting the best-selling 2017 novel of the same name by Robinne Lee, director Michael Showalter (who co-wrote the screenplay with Jennifer Westfeldt) continues to build on an impressive resume that includes “The Big Sick,” “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” and “Spoiler Alert.”

Even though “The Idea of You” adheres to many of the time-tested elements of the Rom-Com Playbook, the premise is a bit tricky and could have turned cringey in the wrong hands. Instead, the potential “ick” factor is played for just the right combination of cringe humor and legit insights about how even in 2024, we tend to be more shocked and judgmental about age-gap romances when it’s the woman who is older. Stop that, us!

Hathaway’s Solène is a 40-year-old single mother who is still reeling from her divorce from cheating husband Daniel (Reid Scott), though the guy is so smarmy we instantly feel she’s better off without him. When Daniel flakes out at the last minute on taking their 16-year-old daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin, who looks quite a bit like “The Princess Diaries”-era Anne Hathaway), and Izzy’s friends to Coachella to see their childhood crush band August Moon, it’s up to Solène to literally take the wheel. (It’s a sign of Daniel’s absentee cluelessness that he doesn’t realize Izzy has moved on from having posters of August Moon on her bedroom wall. The band you love at 11 is rarely the band you love when you’re 16.)

Backstage at Coachella, we get that obligatory Meet Cute between Solène and Hayes, who is 24 and looks like an AI version of a pop star, from the mussed-up hair and the perfect cheekbones to the random tattoos and the aw-shucks stage presence. (There’s a decidedly One Direction vibe to August Moon, and Galitzine does an admirable job of looking and sounding like a pop star, with the production design team re-creating Coachella in a field in Georgia.)

Solène wisely resists Hayes’ initial advances, and that seems like a good idea — not just because of the age difference and the fact that Hayes is an international sex symbol, but maybe more so because she was emotionally T-boned by Daniel’s infidelity and isn’t so sure the idea of love can grow into lasting commitment. Still, with Izzy conveniently away for the summer at camp, Solène decides she deserves an adventure, and that’s our cue for a medley of scenes with Solène accompanying Hayes and the band on a European tour, with the two of them tearing up hotel rooms from Rome to Paris to Barcelona along the way.

Once the press discovers the relationship, all madness breaks loose, and you can probably guess what happens in the subsequent scenes. “The Idea of You” is at its best during some of the quieter moments, as when Solène tells Hayes how she learned Daniel was unfaithful, and when Hayes recounts how he was thrilled at the prospect of meeting his musical idol and perhaps even collaborating with him, only to learn he had been hired to make an appearance at the birthday party for the star’s daughter.

Hayes’ fear is he’ll become a some-hits wonder punchline; Solène’s fear is this romance will turn HER into a punchline. We’re so glad they’re in a rom-com, as that means there’s a fighting chance for a reasonably plausible fairy-tale ending.