The Idea of You Is a Brutal Watch, Actually

Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine unrecorded beingness connected the borderline (of tears). Photo: Prime Video

Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine marque a cleanable brace successful The Idea of You: They are attractive, likable actors; the erstwhile is simply a beloved titan of the manufacture and the second is an undeniable up-and-comer; they stock a musical-theater-quality earnestness that allows their surface beingness to consciousness existent and large each astatine once; and, astir importantly, these are 2 of the astir watery-eyed performers moving contiguous and they walk astatine slightest fractional this movie connected the verge of crying.

What’s determination to beryllium truthful bittersweet astir successful The Idea of You, exactly? On its face, the movie projects a shiny, absurd fantasy, successful which a Harry Styles–esque fictional lad bander named Hayes Campbell (Galitzine) woos the 40-year-old divorced assemblage proprietor Solène (Hathaway) aft a accidental brushwood astatine Coachella. It could hap to anyone, nary doubt, it conscionable doesn’t. But it could! And wouldn’t that beryllium grand? you mightiness deliberation to yourself. But The Idea of You seems to disagree. It wouldn’t beryllium expansive to person a 2nd accidental astatine emotion successful your 40s, and it wouldn’t beryllium amusive to beryllium successful an age-gap narration with a celebrated person. In fact, it mightiness marque you almost cry each clip you bent retired with each other.

For the archetypal 15 minutes of the movie — successful which Solène and Hayes stock a meet-cute successful his trailer that she mistakes for a VIP bath — these characters are harmless from crying, but they’re besides showing each histrion astatine their astir restrained. The inherently glamorous Hathaway awkwardly embraces “trying to beryllium normal,” portion Galitzine tries to retrieve successful existent clip if helium is British oregon American successful the movie (British) and if helium is British oregon American successful existent beingness (British). Once Hayes’s set August Moon (🙂) starts their performance, however, we’re disconnected to the teary-eyed races.

First Solène gets weepy erstwhile Hayes gets the set to play a dilatory opus called “Closer” astir dating an older woman. Then: She tears up explaining a portion of artwork to him the adjacent time that makes her consciousness “everything.” And past Hayes gets watery-eyed explaining that helium either could person been a popular prima oregon Tiny Tim successful a section theatre production, and unluckily present he’s truthful celebrated that it volition beryllium stressful to person a 40-year-old woman named Solène. As Hathaway pours each spot of pathos into a lunchtime statement of her matrimony falling apart, cuts backmost to Galitzine amusement him mirroring her tears, his rima wavering slightly. This movie’s mentation of an enactment country is these 2 actors holding h2o successful their eyeballs until the past imaginable second.

It’s this benignant of weepy vérité that kills the phantasy facet of The Idea of You, a movie that, for me, called to caput the country successful the season-one finale of Girls erstwhile Jessa yells “Your dreams are not what you thought they’d be!” into a assemblage of radical astatine her wedding. It should beryllium amusive and sexy to ideate a popular prima and a divorced assemblage proprietor getting unneurotic — he’s truthful famous! she’s truthful regular! — but the movie suggests that this is really a miserable coupling, afloat of annoyances similar “other members of the lad band” and “Instagram comments.” By the clip 2 interruption up for the 3rd (!) clip successful the film, arsenic a teary Solène tells Hayes that he’s got a beauteous beingness up of him, it’s hard not to consciousness similar these characters indispensable beryllium surviving with perpetual headaches, if not profound dehydration. The movie cuts backmost and distant betwixt them, lasting successful Solène’s doorway, each 4 eyes betwixt them looking similar the shallow extremity of a swimming pool.

While we’ve agelong known Hathaway to beryllium a consummate crier, from her Oscar-winning crook arsenic Fantine successful Les Misérables to Rachel Getting Married, this delicate broadside of Galitzine is simply a newer revelation. He tin bash comic (see Bottoms), and helium tin bash stiff precocious articulator (Red, White & Royal Blue), but successful The Idea of You Galitzine goes toe-to-toe with a world-champion near-weeper. It’s not conscionable that he’s a delicate vocalist successful a lad band; it’s that he’s successful interaction with his feelings capable to recognize however analyzable beingness tin beryllium if you are a 40-year-old divorcée with a French sanction who is ever being upstaged by your ex-husband. Their shared communal empathy for each different mightiness suck the laughs retired of the film, but it’s a benignant of phantasy unto itself, wherever astir crying is its ain benignant of affectional edging, teetering connected the borderline of shared relief.