Deep down, I’ll have to admit, I have a secret love for romance movies.
Something is charming about watching the story of two people sharing a connection and working towards a happy, peaceful—or not-so-peaceful—ending. Of course, it only adds to my enjoyment if a few bits of comedy are also thrown into the plot.
Tending to lean towards the classics, my favorites, including How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Indecent Proposal, and Ghost, have begun to frame my expectations for the rom-coms I watch moving forward.
When I was first exposed to the new release, The Idea of You, the trailers I’d seen didn’t look half bad, so I made the decision to view it to see how accurate my assumptions were.
The story follows single mother, Solene (Anne Hathaway), as she accompanies her daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) to Coachella. The VIP tickets her dad had purchased for a meet-and-greet with the world’s biggest boy band, August Moon, had fallen out of style, as Izzy was now a senior. But, that didn’t stop Solene from unintentionally meeting the lead singer—global sensation Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine)—and beginning a controversial relationship with the man 16 years younger than her.
From the description alone, I should’ve recognized that this was going to be a hard watch. Although the film scored a 6.4 rating on IMDb, which is a lot better compared to some other movies I’ve seen, there was very little that could’ve saved this plotline.
The first 15 minutes of the film was bearable. After being introduced to the characters, I took a liking to Solene and her independent, self-reliant attitude, especially after witnessing her sharp comebacks to the condescending voice of her ex-husband’s new wife; however, after they arrived at Coachella, my opinion rapidly spiraled downhill.
After Solene and Hayes meet for the first time—which is one of the most comically unrealistic events I’ve seen in a film—the performance by the boy band gave me awful second-hand embarrassment. Having a few musical scenes that were equivalent to a Nickelodeon or Disney movie, which I would’ve been fine with watching when I was eight, did not fit with some other scenes that made it worthy of its R rating. Much of the film was hard to watch, but those scenes in particular were almost intolerable.
Every once in a while, there was an element of the plot that mimicked the subpar storylines of almost all fanfiction. The fact that Hayes interferes with Solene’s work life with visits to her hometown and that she gets invited to tour with the band across Europe after knowing the lead singer for less than a day made me want to leave the room. This was the closest I’ve ever gotten to turning off a film halfway through watching it.
The fact that Hathaway starred in it wasn’t even enough to save the humiliation of this movie. She has shown herself to be an incredibly versatile actress in her past roles, but she must’ve lowered her standards when taking the job on the dreadful production of The Idea of You.
