The Idea of You Is a Mostly Not-Guilty Pleasure

Anne Hathaway is just terrific as a 40-year-old woman swept up by a romance with a boy-bander.

Hayes Campbell, the 24-year-old love interest played by Nicholas Galitzine in The Idea of You, is not Harry Styles. But he’s also not not Harry Styles. He’s British, tattooed, loves an oversize cardigan — and he’s a member of a boy band that he’s on the verge of outgrowing. The former One Direction member is an inspiration author Robinne Lee has cited for the novel on which the movie is based, and while The Idea of You isn’t Harry Styles fan fiction (a budding subgenre), Hayes does retain the fuzzy outline of a projection. He isn’t a complete character, not like Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway), the 40-year-old Silver Lake gallery owner whose chance run-in with him at Coachella, while accompanying her teenage daughter to a meet-and-greet, leads to a hectic affair. He is, as the title suggests, an idea — the hunky young pop star who enjoys the benefits of being part of a commercial phenomenon while also staying above it, more sensitive, more talented, and more inclined to not just appreciate the charms of an older woman, but to fall in love with her.

The Idea of You is a fantasy, but not the one you might expect upon reading the logline of the movie. Directed with uninspired competence by Michael Showalter, its escapism is less erotic than demographic, a dream of being able to partake in a cultural offering that isn’t for you anymore. Solène is recently divorced from finance asshole Dan (Reid Scott) and trying not to project bitterness about him leaving her for a younger co-worker. She can’t be a fan of Hayes’s band, August Moon. That would be humiliating, as the movie makes clear from her encounter with a middle-aged Moonhead clutching a poster in the VIP lounge. August Moon is a manufactured product, five cute boys with different personas assembled, as Hayes tells her, from head shots on a wall. Solène’s 17-year-old daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), has already outgrown their music, which is all adolescent yearning. But her connection with Hayes, sparked when she mistakenly walks into his trailer thinking it’s the bathroom, provides her with a way of enjoying his show without shame. Even as the movie assures us that Hayes is more than just a teenybopper by showing him noodling around on a guitar in service of his own compositions, it revels in the experience of standing on the side of the stage in front of an arena full of screaming teenagers, being serenaded by someone making it clear the pop song he’s singing is for you.

This offering is more alluring than it sounds. Solène’s life is covetable, with her Silver Lake Craftsman, roster of good friends, and charming business, but it’s also very grown-up. A montage of Solène getting hit on by awkward or not-actually-separated men at her birthday party previews what dating as a 40-something will be like. Meanwhile, Hayes is there with his uncomplicated musical pleas for love and his itinerant existence flying around in a private plane and idling in European cities between shows — a life unencumbered by adult baggage. The first time he and Solène are together, it’s in a hotel room above Manhattan, an idyllic non-space where they can fall into each other’s arms and then order room service afterward. It’s a sexy scene, though every other lusty encounter is folded into montages that prioritize the image of them sprawling in luxury sheets over actual hooking up. With Izzy at camp and Solène’s gallery emptied out by Hayes’s purchases, he coaxes an initially resistant Solène to come with him on tour, an interlude presented as a delirious whirl of sightseeing and tumbling around different rented suites — a romance as vacation.

Galitzine, coming off the much sillier Red, White & Royal Blue, never comes close to summoning the charisma of a successful performing artist. That doesn’t derail the movie too much, because it’s so overwhelmingly about Solène, and as Solène, Hathaway gives a particularly lovely and vulnerable performance. She’s radiant as a woman reconnecting with big, swooping emotions, and reminding herself that those feelings are not the exclusive territory of the young. At 41, Hathaway hardly looks older than her 29-year-old co-star, which dulls a lot of the provocation that’s meant to come with the age gap between the lovers. The performers themselves may not sizzle with innate chemistry, but the movie manages to be sultry regardless, thanks to the spectacle of Solène feeling desirable. When she shows up in New York in heels and a trench coat that she peels off to reveal a sheer dress, it’s like looking at someone who’s just walked into a spotlight. The Idea of You could stand to be a little more indulgent — it allows the real world to rush into its unexpected relationship almost before it gets going — but it’s surprisingly seductive even with its restraint. Anyone can holler along to a One Direction song in the privacy of their home, but it’s something else to reconnect with the feelings expressed by one of those big choruses.