Last year’s May December explored the ramifications of a scandalous age-gap relationship in juicily melodramatic fashion. In The Idea of You, director Michael Showalter (The Big Sick) gives us the rom-com version: a Notting Hill in reverse (Hill Notting?) in which a 40-year-old gallery owner embarks on a clandestine romance with a 24-year-old boy-band heartthrob who has until only recently adorned the walls of her teenage daughter’s bedroom.
“I’m too old for you!” sighs gallery owner Solène (Anne Hathaway) to Harry Styles-alike Hayes (Nicholas Galitzine, Red White & Royal Blue, 2022’s Cinderella) after a day of flogging him art ends with them kissing in her kitchen. Hayes, though, has been smitten ever since she stumbled into his trailer at Coachella looking for a restroom: a rather flimsy meet-cute that sets the tone for everything that follows in this glossy but shallow adaptation of Robinne Lee’s 2017 beach-read bestseller.
