L'idée d'être avec toi

It's hard to believe Anne Hathaway is the same age as Bette Davis as Margo Channing in "All About Eve". However, Hathaway truly owns 40 in this 2024 romcom as she plays Solene, a successful Silver Lake art gallery owner still smarting from a divorce three years prior. While taking her teenaged daughter to Coachella, she meets Hayes Campbell, the 24-year-old lead singer of globally popular boy band August Moon. Sparks fly immediately, and homemade sandwiches lead to an extended rendezvous on a world tour. While Nicholas Galitzine fulfills the limited contours of his role as a smitten pop star, it is really Hathaway that delivers the goods giving an accomplished performance that finally adds maturity to her natural effervescence. Directed by Michael Showalter (whose last film was 2022's underrated "Spoiler Alert"), the movie definitely swerves with predictable plot turns, but at least thanks to the observant script by Showalter and the wondrous Jennifer Westfeldt, it moves with a certain aplomb that makes it watchable. Enough with the Hathahate.

I was skeptical at first and thought I would like this movie because it is fanfiction, but I was proven wrong. It suprised me in a good way.

Anne was amazing in portrayal of Solène the role really suits her. Nicholas did a satisfactory job with singing I wish songs where more catchy so that they can be popular and after movie.

There is such great chemistry between Anne and Nicholas which is so important for this kind of movie. I really enjoyed watching their scenes.

Also I really like how they showed the difference in people's reactions when they saw her as a woman dating a younger man versus her ex-husband dating a younger woman.

Anne and Nicholas both had great acting. Worth the watch if you liked movies like Fifty Shades, and rom coms. However, i do think it was rushed, and not that much plot besides a boy in a boyband, and a girl who sells art. The romance scenes are good, but it's very fast paced. I wouldn't expect much better than most romance flicks, but the music played is good. I thought it was kinda weird for her to be 40 and him to be 20, and that be the basis of it, i'm not sure what they were trying to do with that as Anne and Nicholas look about the same age and you don't really think of that the whole movie. Not a waste of time movie, try it, you might like it. Critic Review is accurate in my opinion.

I saw this last night at the Atlanta Film Festival alongside a friend who is also in her 40s. We went into it calling it "the Harry Styles fanfiction movie" and knowing it was going to be a bit of a fantastical and sexy romp, but we both agreed at the end that we were surprised at how emotional we got watching it. I guess I shouldn't actually be surprised at this knowing that Jennifer Westfeldt was one of the writers, since I'm a huge fan of how she portrays women and relationships. (Kissing Jessica Stein is one of my major cultural touchstone movies.) I'm also a big Michael Showalter fan, but had never really associated him with telling this kind of story before. He gave a Director Q&A after, and I really appreciated hearing him talk about the process of making this, especially with regards to not making Hayes or the idea of being in a boy band a "joke" or something to poke fun at.

The best part of this movie is the fact that it shows something we rarely see on screen: the idea of a woman in her 40s being found intriguing, sexy, and desirable, and the object of pursuit by a younger, attractive man. The way that it achieves this is nothing new to movies - love at first sight, Solene being the only woman he can think about, and that she stirred something in him that no one else can. This is a common mechanism in female fanastical romances (see also: Fifty Shades of Grey) because, well, it's one of the biggest fantasies we all have, especially for heterosexual women. (Let's hope that it doesn't spawn an epidemic of middle-aged women "accidentally" breaking into band trailers at music festivals.) But it does, at its core, speak to a fantasy that anyone who wants to be loved has: that we will be seen for who we are, not for our familial or life situation, the wrinkles on our face, or the birthdate on our driver's license.

The other unique thing that the movie portrays is the idea of men being emotionally vulnerable. The way that you see Hayes falling for Solene and expressing his feelings about her is not something you see very often with male leads. Again, this may be a bit of a heterosexual female fantasy, but I think it comes at a time when society is beginning to be more accepting and understanding of the need for men to be able to express their emotions. If you want to know why so many women love The Notebook (another fantastical romance), think about how you see Ryan Gosling's character show just how emotionally attached he is to Rachel McAdams's character. You don't see this in that many movies, but when you do, there's a very good chance that women love it.

The film also makes good points about the hypocrisy of society with how Hayes and Solene's relationship is treated, how no one bats an eyelash when male celebrities date women 10, 20, even 50 years younger than they are (ahem, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino), but the idea of a woman dating a younger man is scandalous. This is a point made by Annie Mumolo, who I always love to see on screen, but who is regrettably underutilized here as the best friend character. There is definitely a feminist undercurrent to the movie, including some really cute lines made by Solene's daughter, but it's doesn't hit you over the head with it.

Although there are some areas I would've liked to have been handled better, such as the scene where there's tension with the other band members, overall it's a sweet and emotional movie that gives us something I think all women would agree that we want: recognition that we are more than just our age.

Take the 2023 Jennifer Lopez film Marry Me, mix it with the 1999 Julia Roberts film Notting Hill, and you get this movie basically.

Good for what it is. But, why do people have to go and make things so complicated, in the words of Avril Lavigne?

This movie was pleasant, but also frustrating because the female character was too hung up on her age and what other people thought. Meanwhile, she had a literal Prince charming they're waiting for her, time and time again. All that precious time wasted, worrying over nothing.

If anything, this movie demonstrates why people shouldn't let anything get in the way of true love, how silly it is to do so.