‘The Idea of ​​You’ and the Middle-Aged Woman’s True Fantasy

Notice: This post contains spoilers for The idea of ​​you.

These are dark days for romance. Married is under. Engagements are down. People don’t seem to like dating apps anymore. Even sex is down. The most successful film of last year (Barbie) was about the guy no catching the girl. Where does this leave romantic comedies, that great fantasy engine that launched 100,000 Hinge profiles? How will people find themselves without lunar love stories to dream about?

Romance is not about accepting this situation idly. (Sorry.) Just as movies about lone superheroes turned into movies about galaxies of superheroes, and movies about a scary monster turned into a Godzilla vs. KongIn smackdown style, romantic comedies have had to amp up the fantasy, and not just by having Ryan Gosling play a lover It is a fighter in The fallen guy. They’ve gone so far as to borrow a trick from their disreputable cousins ​​in porn and break some deep taboos.

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And I’m not just talking about the recent wave of films that explore love stories between older women and younger men. They came in many forms, from the darkly funny May December for the erotic and very French thriller Last summer. None of these movies take long to grant wishes, which is like having a superhero movie where people resolve interplanetary crises through negotiations.

No, the really profound breaking of taboos is being done by The idea of ​​you, which is being heavily sold as an age gap romance, but it’s actually much more than that. It really belongs to the middle-aged women’s fantasy film (MALF) genre. If there were a Comic-Con for slightly overworked mid-career women – a Discontentment-Con, if you will –The idea of ​​you there would be a panel on the main stage. MALF is the genre that asks: If Thor can have a hammer that keeps coming back and a bunch of cool superhero friends and a fulfilling job saving the universe, can’t a 40-year-old woman get everything she wants in a movie too? ? AND The idea of ​​you responds that if she’s Solène Marchand, the coolest single mom on the entire West Coast, she can and does.

Solène is an art dealer who represents female artists and lives in a beautiful but not too flashy artisan cottage with a fireplace and piano, in unearthly harmony with her teenage daughter Izzy. She has a cool but modest career that doesn’t seem as boring or cruel as the art trade really is, and a group of extremely loyal and supportive friends. She has mastered the feminine arts of cooking and wearing lingerie, but in a human and understandable way; Neither her fridge nor her breasts are holding up as she expected.

Seven minutes into the film we meet the middle-aged lady’s nemesis, her ex, who does something vaguely profitable, lives somewhere excessively rectangular and sleeps with someone younger. Despite seemingly having everything a person could want, he disappoints his ex-wife and daughter – again! Solène saves the day, abandoning her plans to go camping alone, which she is fully capable of, and offering to take her daughter and two friends to Coachella, like any cool heroine mom would do.

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Sometimes people who consistently put themselves last, the film seems to say, who put their hopes and dreams on hold for their families, or use their considerable talents in service of a greater good, can emerge on top. The same happens when Solène, through an adorable misunderstanding about music festival signage, stumbles upon the trailer of a boy band member about a decade and a half younger and insists on using his bathroom. Instead of calling security, the young demigod immediately sees something in our heroine that no one else has. He then does what all young men do when they have an older woman in their sights: he buys all the art in her gallery! He enjoys your homemade sandwiches! Instead of nude requests, he texts her an invitation to go on a European tour with him!

In one scene, Solène walks past a crowd of paparazzi and teenagers with phones, with Hayes Campbell, the young star, hidden in the reclined seat next to her. Nobody even notices her. In case the viewer doesn’t notice, the film keeps reminding us: this is a woman that no one sees, except the star of the hottest boy band in the world. No one can take their eyes off him, and he can’t take his eyes – or his hands, or various other parts of his body – off her.

This is the height of true fantasy – not attracting a young man with chiseled cheekbones, perfect teeth and the ability to wear a thick cardigan on a very hot day without so much as a drop of sweat – but actually getting noticed. When the couple inevitably they are photographed together, everyone has to recalibrate who Solène really is. Some are jealous, others are horrified. (The ageless Anne Hathaway plays the woman who endures this judgment-fest—a role that probably isn’t too difficult.) Most baffling of all is her slimy ex, now dumped by her young lover and with nothing but her glassy lair to live in. snuggle up at night.

Although the film makes it clear that Solène doesn’t need anything, she ultimately gets everything. Her superpowers – authenticity, talent, loyalty, kindness – allow her to take revenge on her enemy and emerge from her period of struggle having it all and more – a liberated libido, a booming career, her son’s admiration and much, much more. . of hot sex with the most desired man in the world. That she is also, informs the viewer, a feminist.

Of course, the duo faced some obstacles related to age, fame, schedule, and mean girls and had to go their separate ways for a while. Years later, however, they meet again and the viewer realizes that they have both matured; she no longer has bangs and he pursues a solo career. Maybe this time it will work. Good things, the film notes, come with age. Or at least that’s what a woman over 40 can dream of.