Saturday, 18 May 2024

VOD: The Idea Of You (dir: Michael Showalter, 2024)

"You embarrassed to be jetsetting around the world with a twenty-four-year-old pop star?"

Like many art forms, if movies centre on the willing suspension of disbelief, along comes The Idea Of You, for which the viewer is expected to buy into a forty-year-old 'ordinary' divorced art-gallery-owning mother (Anne Hathaway) having a wild romance with a twenty-four-year-old goofy lead singer of a global hit boyband (rising star Nicholas Galitzine), a scenario which would test even the most die-hard rom-com fan - they even get to kiss, in the rain, in Paris.  An actress of Hathaway's calibre elevates the generally limp material (her reaction to a horde of screaming fans is spot-on), Galatzine throws his industrial-strength charm and sensitivity at the screen and sings quite well in the bland concert/recording sequences, and the pair work well together.   Filmed in a slightly less-glossy style than its counterparts and with some longer scenes, the age-gap adds a different dimension than most examples of the genre, but mostly, this is pleasantly-delivered if utterly silly romantic-fantasy fare.
 

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