by Nick Nitkowski

Right off the bat I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into going to see “The Idea of You.” All I needed to see was the poster and I knew. The details of said poster didn’t register until later. It wasn’t until I was seated at the theater waiting for the film to start that I noticed that Anne Hathaway was in it. Clearly, I didn’t even see a trailer for this movie beforehand. But I knew it was going to be a romance film, a genre I’m not particularly fond of, so I braced myself for what was to come. Now that I’ve seen it, I can honestly say that it was better than I expected it to be.

As mentioned earlier, the movie stars Anne Hathaway as a single mom running an art gallery and after a last-minute debacle from her ex-husband, she is forced to take her 16-year-old daughter and her friends to Coachella where she accidentally runs into one of the singers from the boyband August Moon, played by Nicholas Galitzine, and a romance blossoms between them.

The reason why I’m not a big fan of the romantic-comedy genre is because to me they are all the same. I find them to be very formulaic and there are very few of them that have managed to win me over. It’s always guy meets girl, or visa versa, in some way, they form a romance, something happens that causes them to break up, then one or the other goes out of their way to get them back after some period of time, happily ever after, rinse and repeat. Hell, there has already been a movie just two years ago where a celebrity dates one of us normies. It was called “Marry Me” with J-Lo and Owen Wilson. So, if these movies are all the same, why bother making or watching them? It’s all about the execution and I’d say this particular movie was executed well enough to keep my attention.

The main thing about these movies is that you have to care about not only the characters, but also their romance. You have to want to root for them and cheer them on, otherwise the film is dead in the water. Fortunately, you do care about these characters and their romance. The chemistry between them felt very genuine and that’s very good for the film.

The side characters were also good. Rom-coms tend to have some of THE most annoying side characters every time. Luckily, that was not the case here. Everyone in the film acted and behaved like actual people. Even the characters you want to root against. No one felt cartoonish, over-the-top, or annoying and that is a huge plus for me personally.

The film however does fall victim to the Rom-com tropes that I had mentioned earlier. Meet, romance, break-up, rekindle, etc. But they do factor in a few things. They don’t just take on the scrutiny of the public eye when a celebrity dates and normal person, but it also deals with significant age gaps between couples. Mix the two together and you catch a glimpse of what some celebrities are probably going through. Age gaps have been a big talking point on social media lately. My personal take on that is if both parties are legal consenting adults, then their dating life is no one else’s business. And it’s those types of unique subject matter that makes this particular film a step up from the rest.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by “The Idea of You.” Formulaic and times? Yes. Convincing romance? Also yes. Good acting from everyone across the board. And most importantly, it did not make me want to leave the theater early like some many other Rom-coms before it. I thought I knew what I was getting into, and I was right about most of it, but it had a certain uniqueness and charm to it that managed to sway a non-fan of the genre such as myself.

Streaming on Prime Video May 2nd 2024

3 1/2 stars