'The Idea of You' review: Anne Hathaway dazzles in rom-com inspired by Harry Styles fandom | 9XG056V | 2024-03-22 10:08:01
In Michael Showalter's The Concept of You — which sees a middle-aged mom falling for a youthful pop star — fan-fiction fantasy collides with actuality in clunky ways. The outcome, nevertheless, is breathtaking for one purpose particularly: a career-highlight performance from Anne Hathaway, who also serves because the film's producer.
The rom-com is seldom thought-about a venue for such luminous on-screen work, however Showalter's movie (penned by Kissing Jessica Stein's Jennifer Westfeldt) affords the Oscar-winning actress a enjoyable, liberating, and infrequently melodramatic half. While the movie too lazily expresses its social commentary by way of verbose declarations about double requirements for ladies in the public highlight, Hathaway ceaselessly speaks together with her eyes, bringing the story's extra difficult emotions and wishes to the fore in silent, thought-about moments.
It is a rush of power at occasions, and its weakest moments are only fleeting inconveniences. Bottoms' Nicholas Galitzine holds his personal reverse Hathaway in a task that — although shallowly written — offers him with a star-making turn. However enough can't be stated about what an incredible performance Hathaway delivers here, virtually warping the movie around her blazing display presence, till The Concept of You becomes a personal mission statement concerning the sort of roles she is going to very possible command in the near future. (In her personal words: "I need to have fun, dammit. It speaks to me.")
What's The Concept of You about? &
Based mostly on the 2017 novel by actress Robinne Lee, The Concept of You expands on the burgeoning cottage business of film based mostly on lightly-disguised fan fiction of One Course's Harry Types. Where the five-movie After collection — launched between 2019 and 2023, based mostly on a collection of 2014-15 novels — options international school scholar Hardin Scott (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), The Concept of You has the more straightforwardly Types-esque Hayes Campbell (Galitzine), a 24-year-old English heartthrob who ostensibly leads the boy band August Moon.
The group, now almost a decade previous, continues to be in style with tweens and moms, but to high-schooler Izzy (Ella Rubin) and her associates, they're already a nostalgia act ("They're so seventh grade," she groans). When Izzy's father, Daniel (Reid Scott), splurges on VIP tickets to the band's Coachella meet-and-greet, she politely agrees to attend —& whereas her mother Solène (Hathaway) is unexpectedly referred to as in to chaperone.
Solène is a 40-year-old art vendor in Los Angeles's hipster chic Silver Lake, and isn't notably enthused about hordes of screaming fans of August Moon — a band she is aware of little about. Nevertheless, a misunderstanding results in a meet-cute in Hayes' trailer, throughout which the young Brit is immediately smitten with the beguiling mother. Solène is more amused than swooning. But the truth that she doesn't appear to actually know who he is — and that she isn't flustered or overwhelmed by his movie star — is refreshing to Hayes.
He pursues her with oodles of allure, leading to a secretive whirlwind romance on his European tour. Unfortunately, a star affair can only stay secret for therefore lengthy. The dam inevitably breaks, revealing a flood of misogyny directed Solène's means by means of social media.&
This results in a somber detour, throughout which the movie insists on stopping to elucidate its underlying social dynamics in broad, preachy statements for the digital camera, even when it doesn't have to. Hathaway's quiet responses to each evolving state of affairs carry sufficient nuance to get the purpose across, making certain that The Concept of You remains tethered to its emotional core even when it verges on sermonizing. There's not often a second the place the actress isn't completely convincing as a lady making an attempt to fend off venomous media scrutiny as she attempts to reside her greatest life. It's a becoming position for Hathaway, given what she's been by means of herself — Hathahaters gonna hate& — but this is just one of a number of parts that makes her efficiency so unmissable.
Anne Hathaway is completely beautiful in The Concept of You.
The plot might sound run-of-the-mill, but the dramatic tensions between Hayes and Solène — stemming from their differing life, and the disparity in what they want and the way they read numerous situations, given their 16-year age hole — are deftly expressed via wordless glances. You may watch the film on mute and still feel 100 % of the electrical energy between its leads (although you'd miss out on the film's earworm soundtrack within the course of, a fitting mixture of basic rock and August Moon "originals").& Because it's being released straight to Prime Video, it's a shame The Concept of You gained't see a correct theatrical launch, because listening to (and more importantly, feeling) a whole viewers being swept up within the movie is one hell of a enjoyable experience. It's the type of film that pulls not solely raucous laughter from a crowd, however excited hooting and hollering when things get scorching and heavy.&
The couple's hesitance is palpable, however so is their mutual lust and their deeper, extra fulfilling connection. Showalter builds their respective wishes by means of scenes of what they lack, or what they will't discover elsewhere. Hayes attempts to tune out the overzealous power of screaming fans, and Solène tries her greatest not to be slowed down by the mundane, divorcé power of men her age. He needs one thing extra mature, and more secure, whereas she yearns for the type of free-spirited adventure she by no means had as a younger mother who married right after school. These wishes are at odds, but can they meet perfectly within the middle?
Nicolas Galitzine is not any Harry Types.&
As a stage performer in The Concept of You, Galitzine lacks the pop prince's excessive degree of panache. However he is committed to rounding out the character with hidden layers behind closed doors. Nevertheless, he steadily brushes up towards points in the movie's writing and modifying.&
We not often see the deeper, non-celebrity self of which he incessantly speaks, and which pulls Solène to him in the first place. His interiority is more mentioned than revealed. Still, their dynamic is instantly enrapturing due to Hathaway's suppressed excitement. Even should you never really feel a thing for Hayes through the film's 115 minutes, all you need is one take a look at Solène's reactions to his longing stares with a purpose to be satisfied. The best way she smiles together with her eyes tells a whole story on its own: of a lady who yearns to be seen and adored, and who lastly gets this stuff every time Hayes walks into a room.
It is a thrilling efficiency, and it proves to be heartbreaking even when the movie speeds by means of its interpersonal drama to skip between rom-com tropes, including the inevitable rift between the lovers. Hathaway makes these rushed plot parts really feel entire, turning Solène's insecurities inward in the type of worry, and outward as impulsive, self-destructive selections. It's as if Solène, having been harm by males prior to now, is so terrified of love's prospects that she has no selection but to cease the movie lifeless. However it doesn't matter what path it takes, Hathaway fills it with life.
How fantasy and actuality collide in The Concept of You.
Showalter tends to lack visual flair as a filmmaker, which surprisingly (maybe by chance) works to his benefit in preliminary scenes. Before Hayes and Solène meet, the body all the time seems noncommittal, each in its staging and its use of colour. It's never aesthetically offensive, nevertheless it doesn't do a lot past take an unobtrusive, uninvolved, flatly lit take a look at Solène's every day routine.
Nevertheless, once Solène provides into temptation (after permitting herself to really feel the giddy rush of youthful anticipation), she gets swept up in Hayes' way of life, and cinematographer Jim Frohna turns the frame heat and intimate. His digital camera captures every arousing first — their first touch, their first kiss, and Solène's steamy first orgasm — with ecstatic power, as the characters get misplaced in passion. However additionally they merely take pleasure in one another's firm behind closed doors, and get swept up in joy and laughter distant from watchful eyes.
When& the load of actuality comes crashing down on them, in the form of invasive superstar gossip and on-line vitriol, the consequences on Solène's psyche are stark. But the impression of their relationship on Izzy finally ends up a key factor within the movie's trajectory. In growing older Izzy up to 16 (she's 12 years previous within the e-book), she turns into a much more self-aware part of the story, together with her personal thoughts and her own conflicting objections and acceptance. The film employs her as a sly mouthpiece for its gender commentary — very similar to Barbie did with its opinionated teenager —but how critically it takes her input seems to vary from scene to scene.
On the plus aspect, The Concept of You by no means falls sufferer to the brash, reductive framing of artwork and artistry discovered in lots of mainstream films — particularly romance movies, where couples bond over their distaste for perceived pretentiousness. What starts out as a scene of Hayes and Solène making enjoyable of recent, interpretive artwork takes on a much more significant tone as they discover connection within the abstract. Solène loves artwork, in any case, and Hayes even learns to take it as significantly as she does. Conversely, every time Hayes' inventive insecurities bubble to the surface, Solène takes him critically too, regardless of his seemingly frivolous public persona. It helps that the music he produces — whether his soulful acoustic solos, or the group's mainstream chart-toppers, which have a bit of a Maroon 5 kick — is genuinely value listening to.&
The concepts these two individuals have of one another could also be idealized at occasions, as is the case with any new relationship. But the film reckons with this as properly. It brushes up towards the expectations of romantic comedies, at occasions subverting them by delving deeper than anticipated into its couple's personal problems (on this case, stemming from Hayes' dreamlike stardom). Nevertheless, The Concept of You can also be totally unapologetic about its genre, regardless of verging on deconstructive in its ultimate act. It needs to have its cake and eat it too, and it principally succeeds.
Lee's guide was criticized by several readers for its sudden, arguably unpleasant ending. The movie doesn't keep away from this facet of the supply materials, nevertheless it does broaden on it in satisfying ways, that are anchored by Hathaway's riveting performance, resulting in a remaining shot destined to be remembered among the actress's profession highlights. She's persistently delivered throughout her 23-year career, whether or not in her Oscar-winning position in status musical Les Misérables, or in conventional dramas like Brokeback Mountain and Rachel Getting Married. Nevertheless, her work in rom-coms isn't remembered quite as fondly. Whereas this may be comprehensible for less acclaimed films like Bride Wars and Valentine's Day, even 2010's Love & Different Medicine, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination, is seldom talked about in the same breath as her strongest work. She hasn't starred in a rom-com in almost a decade and a half, so The Concept of You marks a triumphant return to a genre through which she hasn't acquired her due, making it a crowning second for someone who's all the time had the potential to be a rom-com queen.
It's a efficiency that not solely works inside the lighthearted confines of the rom-com, however one which calls for extra rigorous dramatic work as nicely: a cinematic synthesis that requires an actress of her caliber. She's so phenomenally in-tune with the material that she practically transforms The Concept of You right into a career rebirth, where she's capable of style a style in any other case thought-about disposable fluff into something deeply shifting, writing a brand new chapter for herself as a personality who wrestles with whether or not she deserves a brand new lease on life. The answer, for each Hathaway and Solène, is an emphatic "sure," and seeing them get all the things they deserve is cinematic wish-fulfillment at its best.
The Concept of You was reviewed out of SXSW 2024; it can debut on Prime Video on Might 2.
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