The Idea of You
Short description
Solène, a 40-year-old single mother, takes her teenage daughter to the Coachella music festival, where she meets Hayes Campbell, the 24-year-old lead singer of August Moon, the most popular boy band in the world. What starts as an unexpected encounter turns into a romance, and Solène finds herself navigating the pressures of his fame and the scrutiny that comes with it, while also reckoning with the age difference between them.
The film is directed by Michael Showalter, who wrote the screenplay with Jennifer Westfeldt. It sits between Spoiler Alert, his 2022 release, and Oh. What. Fun., which followed in 2025, in a run of features that began with Hello, My Name Is Doris in 2015. Anne Hathaway plays Solène and also produces alongside Cathy Schulman and Gabrielle Union; Nicholas Galitzine plays Hayes, with Ella Rubin, Annie Mumolo, Reid Scott and Perry Mattfeld in supporting roles.
Released in May 2024, the film runs 116 minutes and blends comedy, drama, music and romance. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.3 from around 83,000 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.2 from roughly 2,000 votes, indicating a modest but clearly warmer response from that audience. A critics' rating of 6.5 from 185 reviews places it close to the IMDb figure, slightly above it, and below the TMDB average.
What's left behind the scenes
- In Solène’s office, played by Anne Hathaway, a poster by Hilma af Klint, a Swedish artist whose paintings are among the first abstractions in the history of Western art, can be seen.
- The film's ending differs from the ending of Robin Lee’s debut novel from 2017, which served as the literary basis for the screenplay. In the novel, Solène admits that she used Hayes, the character of Nicholas Golitsyn, and never loved him – despite actually loving him. He continues to text her, but to no avail. In the film, Hayes tells Solène that they will rekindle their love in five years, and they do meet again.
- Many of the artworks shown in the film are authentic.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
