‘The Idea of You’ Review: A Mostly Not-Guilty Pleasure

Hayes Campbell, the 24-year-old love curiosity performed by Nicholas Galitzine in The Concept of You, shouldn’t be Harry Types. However he’s additionally not not Harry Types. He’s British, tattooed, loves an oversize cardigan — and he’s a member of a boy band that he’s on the verge of outgrowing. The previous One Route member is an inspiration creator Robinne Lee has cited for the novel on which the film is predicated, and whereas The Concept of You isn’t Harry Types fan fiction (a budding subgenre), Hayes does retain the fuzzy define of a projection. He isn’t an entire character, not like Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway), the 40-year-old Silver Lake gallery proprietor whose probability run-in with him at Coachella, whereas accompanying her teenage daughter to a meet-and-greet, results in a busy affair. He’s, because the title suggests, an concept — the hunky younger pop star who enjoys the advantages of being a part of a business phenomenon whereas additionally staying above it, extra delicate, extra gifted, and extra inclined to not simply admire the charms of an older girl, however to fall in love together with her.

The Concept of You is a fantasy, however not the one you would possibly count on upon studying the logline of the film. Directed with uninspired competence by Michael Showalter, its escapism is much less erotic than demographic, a dream of with the ability to partake in a cultural providing that isn’t for you anymore. Solène is not too long ago divorced from finance asshole Dan (Reid Scott) and attempting to not venture bitterness about him leaving her for a youthful co-worker. She will’t be a fan of Hayes’s band, August Moon. That might be humiliating, because the film makes clear from her encounter with a middle-aged Moonhead clutching a poster within the VIP lounge. August Moon is a manufactured product, 5 cute boys with completely different personas assembled, as Hayes tells her, from head pictures on a wall. Solène’s 17-year-old daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), has already outgrown their music, which is all adolescent craving. However her reference to Hayes, sparked when she mistakenly walks into his trailer pondering it’s the lavatory, offers her with a means of having fun with his present with out disgrace. Even because the film assures us that Hayes is greater than only a teenybopper by displaying him noodling round on a guitar in service of his personal compositions, it revels within the expertise of standing on the facet of the stage in entrance of an area stuffed with screaming youngsters, being serenaded by somebody making it clear the pop track he’s singing is for you.

This providing is extra alluring than it sounds. Solène’s life is covetable, together with her Silver Lake Craftsman, roster of excellent pals, and charming enterprise, however it’s additionally very grown-up. A montage of Solène getting hit on by awkward or not-actually-separated males at her celebration previews what courting as a 40-something can be like. In the meantime, Hayes is there along with his uncomplicated musical pleas for love and his itinerant existence flying round in a non-public aircraft and idling in European cities between exhibits — a life unencumbered by grownup baggage. The primary time he and Solène are collectively, it’s in a resort room above Manhattan, an idyllic non-space the place they’ll fall into one another’s arms after which order room service afterward. It’s a horny scene, although each different lusty encounter is folded into montages that prioritize the picture of them sprawling in luxurious sheets over precise hooking up. With Izzy at camp and Solène’s gallery emptied out by Hayes’s purchases, he coaxes an initially resistant Solène to return with him on tour, an interlude introduced as a delirious whirl of sightseeing and tumbling round completely different rented suites — a romance as trip.

Galitzine, coming off the a lot sillier Crimson, White & Royal Blue, by no means comes near summoning the charisma of a profitable performing artist. That doesn’t derail the film an excessive amount of, as a result of it’s so overwhelmingly about Solène, and as Solène, Hathaway provides a very pretty and weak efficiency. She’s radiant as a girl reconnecting with huge, swooping feelings, and reminding herself that these emotions will not be the unique territory of the younger. At 41, Hathaway hardly seems older than her 29-year-old co-star, which dulls plenty of the provocation that’s meant to return with the age hole between the lovers. The performers themselves might not sizzle with innate chemistry, however the film manages to be sultry regardless, due to the spectacle of Solène feeling fascinating. When she exhibits up in New York in heels and a trench coat that she peels off to disclose a sheer costume, it’s like somebody who’s simply walked right into a highlight. The Concept of You might stand to be just a little extra indulgent — it permits the true world to hurry into its sudden relationship nearly earlier than it will get going — however it’s surprisingly seductive even with its restraint. Anybody can holler alongside to a One Route track within the privateness of their house, however it’s one thing else to reconnect with the emotions expressed by a type of huge choruses.