Charming leads, missed opportunities.

A romance based on a novel based (apparently) on Harry Styles, boy-band-turned-solo-popstar, and his exploits with older women – and if so, this feels sanitized, not necessarily of salaciousness, but of genuine excitement or anything worth making a movie for.

Leads Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine have charisma and chemistry – but their characters, 40 year old Soléne and 24 year old Hayes, do not. There are no real fireworks: neither in the predictable yet only half-realised story beats of their supposedly controversial, steamy affair which for no real reason becomes a love story; nor in their dynamics with the characters or the world around them – not with the half-arcs for Soléne’s teenage daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) and douchey ex-husband Daniel (Reid Scott), nor with Hayes’ super-celebrity life and its unique conditions and pressures, full of potential for narrative drama, and which should get more meaningful exploration or even a couple of insights:

see Notting Hill for an example of how to do what The Idea of You could have.

Not helping this nothing burger is that The Idea Of You also suffers from something typical of most movies featuring music: the songs lack the real-world vibrancy (in the case of boy band August Moon) or intensity (in the case of Hayes’ solo project) we’re told they have in the story world.

Whether it’s due to Michael Showalter’s direction, his screenplay with Jennifer Westfeldt, or the book by Robinne Lee, The Idea Of You offers nothing engaging, unpredictable, memorable, or even worthwhile.