Review: Anne Hathaway Is Too Hot for 'The Idea of You'

By Cat Zhang, a culture writer at the Cut, where she covers books, film, TV, and   music. Cat was previously an editor at Pitchfork, and in 2022, she received the ASME Next Award for Journalists Under 30.

Many teenage girls have fantasized about being plucked out of a crowd by their celebrity crush — but what about their moms? Imagine, the shy commoner who catches the eye of the superstar is not the hot high-schooler but the woman who nags her to fix her hair and packs her lunches. This is the revenge daydream behind the not not One Direction fanfic movie The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway as Solène Marchand, a 40-year-old Silver Lake divorcée who must escort her daughter to Coachella. At the festival, she mistakenly walks into the trailer of Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the tattooed heartthrob in her kid’s former favorite boy band, August Moon. Intrigued by her outward indifference to him, he chases her back to L.A., paparazzi in tow. She’s reluctant: Is being caught up in the scandal of dating an Adonis 15 years her junior a worthwhile price for happiness? It’s Wattpad May December with music, but there’s one main problem: Anne Hathaway is way too hot for this role.

The Idea of You is based on Robinne Lee’s book of the same name, and both the film and its source material intend to critique how society renders women obsolete once they reach middle age. As Lee described in an interview, The Idea of You is about a woman “reclaiming her sexuality and rediscovering herself, just at the point that society traditionally writes women off as desirable and viable and whole.” It’s a fine message but one muddled by the choice in casting. Who could believe Hathaway as a neglected matron convinced she’s not worthy of love? Yes, Solène is a fictional creation, but she is overpowered by Hathaway’s real-life renown. The actress is a world-famous beauty who descends down red carpets in latex couture. Her long brown tresses waterfall down her unblemished back like she’s a walking commercial for both TRESemmé and Neutrogena. Everywhere she goes, she leaves a trail of admirers with their mouths agape.

In other words, Hathaway is so well-known for being gorgeous it’s ridiculous to extrapolate her experience, even in a make-believe context, onto the romantic plight of dejected moms. Sure, she has children and is around the same age as Solène. But Solène is supposed to be an ordinary caretaker, and Hathaway is a movie star with unlimited access to the best skin-care products and estheticians in the country. It’s just not believable! She has been Benjamin Buttoning in the public eye for decades, looking even more fresh faced than during her early 2000s reign as the Princess of Genovia. More Hollywood ingénue than depleted 40-something, Hathaway was even cast as a pop star herself in A24’s upcoming melodrama Mother Mary. In The Idea of You, anyone placed next to her seems comparatively wilted, like potpourri — unfortunate souls who in the movie are sometimes other mothers, like a middle-aged August Moon superfan Solène meets and rushes to escape at Coachella. Solène doesn’t look like her daughter’s parent, as one of Hayes’s bandmates points out, trying to hit on her; she looks like an older sister.

In the beginning of the movie, the creators of The Idea of You seem to forget the film’s own age-gap conceit, then suddenly come to their senses by tossing Hathaway a line like “I’m too old for you” to snap the plot into focus. She is functionally childless for a large chunk of the movie, depositing her kid at summer camp so she can jet set with Hayes across the globe. This amnesia extends to the costuming: Solène swans into Coachella in an oversize tie-dye button-down, straw hat dangling from her back, as if she’s already had a rendezvous with another rock star and snuck away with his outfit. Her vibe is more bohemian muse, off-duty celebrity, shambolic-sexy cast member of Daisy Jones & the Six, and less stressed-out guardian whose child is probably addicted to Stanley Cups and TikTok. The rest of her sartorial choices in The Idea of You suggest a sophisticate in her early 30s at best: She drifts through her gallery in a shoulder-baring maxi dress that screams Anthropologie model and gets fingered by Hayes in a ruffled white two-piece set that looks like it came straight off the Urban Outfitters rack.

Maybe Galitzine shoulders some responsibility for the age gap not fully registering. He’s a 29-year-old playing a 24-year-old, a lightyear of difference in maturity. (An early 20s dude barely has an Ikea dresser at his place; once he’s approaching 30, he can be spotted in the trenches of Facebook Marketplace scouting for a quartet of Cesca chairs.) And Galitzine is a solidly built man sporting neutral, put-together outfits — not, like his prototype, a lanky chap goofing around in whimsical pants. As a film, The Idea of You comes across less as a story about the hard-won triumph of love across generational divides than about the logical union of the visually stunning. If the movie ever gets rebooted, the casting directors should consider a more transgressive, and impressive, pairing: A PTA president with a soccer-mom bob and a string bean in head-to-toe Rick Owens.