Way back in 1971 ‘#Summerof42’ by #RobertMulligan featuring #JenniferOReilly and #GaryGrimes, was released which dealt with a subject of a young boy falling in love with an older woman. The film had a commercial and critical success and was nominated for four #AcademyAwards. Newly released ‘#TheIdeaofYou’ has a similar plot and is based on a novel by the same name by #RobinneLee. The adaptation is seamlessly done and the end is endearing contrary to the book’s ending.
Solène Marchand (Anna Hathaway) is an art dealer based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. She has a teeage daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) but been divorced for a while because her husband, Daniel (Reid Scott), cheated on her. Her life is running smoothly at 40. Suddenly she finds herself accompanying her daughter to Coachella where Izzy wants to be there with her friends to watch her favourite band August Moon perform. Solène accidentally bumps into a 26 years old Hayes Cambell (Nicholas Galitzine). They have a brief talk and she is unaware about his star status as he is a leading performer of the August Moon band. After a few days he stops by her art shop and buys all the stuff and insists on buying more art stuff. In actuality he wants to get closer to Solène. Solène too likes his company but decides not to go ahead due to their age difference. But he keeps pursuing her and she relents and meets him in New York. One thing leads to other and both fall in love with each other. But when their relationship becomes public all hell breaks loose. What happens after and around it forms the crux of the story.
As mentioned earlier, the story is adapted from a book but the screenplay is cleverly interspersed with drama and humour. The blossoming of love looks organic and for that full marks to the director. He has presented the story neatly and swiftly. The interpersonal relationships look realistic. The movie underlines that in the entire world human emotions and societiel behavioral pattern is the same. Young guy, older woman relationships are looked down upon in eastern as well as western countries alike. The movie showcases the impact of snooping paparazzi and the impact of social media on celebrities as well as common people. Anne Hathway looks smashingly beautiful and has delivered a fabulous performance. She has convincingly presented the inner trauma, desires, happiness and pain of the chatacter with ease. Nicholas Galitzine is good too and gets better as the movie progresses. Others including Ella Rubin, Reid Scott lend good support.
Rating : ***1/2
