When Robinne Lee released her book The Idea of You in June 2017, I immediately grabbed a copy. I devoured that book. It was a beautiful, unexpected Love Story that gave me one of the longest book hangovers of my life. It was an incredibly memorable story. The following year, plans were announced to bring The Idea of You to the big screen. Being a big fan of the book, this was exciting news. Talk about the adaptation slowed down, and then fast-forward to June 2021, and we finally had more news about the film. If you recall, we expressed some concerns at that time.
Many fans who loved the book were also worried about how the adaptation would turn out because of the planned changes like changing Solène’s name to Sophie and changing the location of the meet-cute to Coachella. I believe that those involved in the project did, in some ways, take a step back to hear what the readers had to say and took it to heart. We got the name back but had no luck changing the venue from Coachella to Las Vegas. When the trailer for The Idea of You dropped, I was excited but mildly because it was presented as a Rom-Com. As I have said, I have nothing against a good Rom-Com, but that’s not what The Idea of You was ever intended to be.
I understand movie trailers do not give you the whole story because they’re only about two to three minutes long, so I was prepared to go into the film with an open mind. And I did. When I hit “play” on the film, I thought, “This already isn’t Robinne’s story.” Just looking at the set for Solène’s house had me a little taken aback. It didn’t have the modern feel that Lee described. And while I do know they had to age up her daughter Isabelle, it was disappointing to see how little she cared about August Moon. That was part of the conflict between mother and daughter once Solène began dating Hayes. The aging up also threw me off when Solène took her to summer camp because I felt that if she thought that August Moon was “So seventh grade,” why would they send her off to summer camp? But I digress.
Those were small things I overlooked so that I could appreciate Hayes’s relationship with Solène. Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine have chemistry, that is for sure. I enjoyed the moment when they met in his dressing room for the first time. Was it cheesy? Yes, but it did the job of establishing that instant attraction. That being said, there were a lot of critical moments for Hayes and Solène that were not showcased. I know that adapting a book for the big screen is a challenge, and I do not expect every single solitary thing I, as a reader, want to be in the film. But it would have been nice to see. The absence of these moments felt like a missed opportunity to capture the essence of the original story truly.
For instance, we didn’t get that Bel-Air lunch date or the Aspen getaway. Bel-Air is where they have their first lunch date, so watching Hayes and Solène have sandwiches after cleaning out a dead refrigerator at her house wasn’t what I expected. As for the Aspen trip, that may only mean something to me. But that was when she finally admitted that she loved him. There was something so intense and beautiful about that trip when I read it that I would have loved to have seen it on screen. As I said, Hathaway and Galitzine made me believe in their love, which kept me invested throughout the film.
Now, onto the characters themselves. Hathaway did a great job of bringing Solène to life, but I will say that they changed her character quite a bit. Solène Marchand is a French-American woman, but there is no actual acknowledgment, nor do they even seem to recognize it. When Hayes asks if her name is French, she says “French grandparents” as if it’s unimportant. Nothing about the character in the film even remotely gives off that she has French roots.
As for Hayes, Galitizine is lovely. I always enjoy him. However, the writer and director leaned far too much into the Harry Styles thing with his character. From the tattoos to his clothes. Hayes does not have tattoos. And sorry to say this, but he’s a bit more stylish than the movie Hayes Campbell. Movie Hayes did wear some outfits which I did love, but some stuff was a no for me. Even the backstory of how August Moon was formed was giving Harry Styles. In the book, Hayes says he was the one who put the group together with his friends. But, in the film, he was in a contest and got put together with the rest of the guys. If that doesn’t scream One Direction, I don’t know what does.
I have nothing against anyone who writes any story with Harry Styles as the muse. Or fanfiction, for that matter, because I have my favorites. But Lee, the author of The Idea of You, has never claimed that her book was fanfiction. As for Styles being the inspiration, that is only one person amongst several she’s referenced. Men like John Taylor from Duran Duran were among the first she pictured while bringing the story to life. It’s just that Styles is the easy one to latch onto. I admit I saw him as I read the story at some point. Sometimes I didn’t. The choice to market The Idea of You movie on that basis alone was probably not the best idea. And I think they were banking on that to be the draw for seeing the film, which is why they did lean so hard into those Harry-esque moments.
Another concern of mine was the interactions between Solène and her friend and Hayes and his bandmates. In the book The Idea of You, Solène runs her art gallery with her best friend, Lulit. Where was she? Instead, we got Tracy, who doesn’t even work at the gallery. Two strong women ran the gallery in a partnership, yet we didn’t get that relationship on screen. I had quite a few issues with the gallery stuff and even the artwork because the artwork was also a character in the book, but that sophistication was missing in the film. Then, there is Hayes and his bandmates. There weren’t a lot of moments where we even saw the bond or the band drama in the book. We had that moment between Hayes and Ollie by the pool, but even that was done differently.
The Idea of You is not a bad film. I understood the message it was sending that a woman in her 40s can still find love and is able to maintain her agency. And I am sure that if I had not read the book prior to seeing this film, I may have felt differently about it. That is the struggle of being a reader and wanting what you read to translate on screen. Unfortunately there is nothing of note, at least not to me.
Everything just screams been there, done that. It was as if Michael Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt felt that we, as the viewers of this film, would not appreciate the beauty of the real love story that Lee wrote. Changing the book’s ending was one of my biggest gripes, among other things. We didn’t need that five-years later moment at all. The Idea of You is not a Romance. It is a Love story. I have seen many love stories through the years that did not end with everything tied up in a neat little bow (Think Splendor in the Grass, The Way We Were), and that is okay. Women are intellectually capable of watching a film that doesn’t end in a happily ever after. We understand that love is messy, and it doesn’t always turn out how we want it to. This film took the safe route and catered to the masses when it really should have catered to the readers who fell in love with the story.
I really enjoyed your review and agree with many of the points. Solènes house stood out to me too. It looked small and out of character compared to the book.
As for the French-ness of Solène, I think they took that out of the movie to make her more relatable for the mainstream American audience, the target rom.com viewer. As for the book, I must say Robinne handled the French-ness and overall sophistication of Solène a bit heavy handedly, with not enough subtlety and mastery.
French is one of the three languages I speak (not my native tongue), I’ve traveled to some places described in the book, like some parts of the South of france, such as Grasse famous for its perfume making (in the book it’s mentioned how Solène spent summers there as a child), stayed at some “luxurious” hotels, have been exposed to the art gallery world of New York, etc. So to me, it seemed the author saturated the book with all the “exclusivity” in a way a “star-struck” person would, not a person for whom all this is a norm. Like, the more I mention that this skirt is Alaia, and that restaurant is high end and that everything is so French, the more sophisticated it will look to the reader. A side note, I’ve been to france many times and I’ve seen my share of women in stretched out sweat pants and not much of the obligatory “French charm”. In a word, human women, not walking stereotypes))