Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine star in Prime Video’s The Idea of Being With You, a sensual romantic drama.
It is the adaptation of a book that many present as fan fiction by One Direction singer Harry Styles. The Idea of Being With You, now available on Prime Video, simply fits into the “May December Rom Com” genre, which features the relationship between two characters who have a significant age gap.
Anne Hathaway plays Solène, a 40-year-old divorced mother who will fall under the spell of Hayes (Nicholas Galitzine), a music superstar aged only 24. This age difference, although criticized in the press and by fans, will not prevent the two lovebirds from maintaining a passionate relationship over several weeks.
The woman’s pleasure at the center of the film
If some spectators expected The Idea of Being With You to be a sulphurous film, Anne Hathaway wanted to take another direction, as she explains in this interview given to Variety :
“In the book, Robin Lee describes intimate scenes with incredible energy. During their first time, Hayes brings Solène to orgasm while she is still wearing her clothes. It became our point of reference in the sense that it focused on her own pleasure, and that we could show that we can also find pleasure by giving it to someone else.”
In the scene in question, the character of Solène actually arrives in the singer’s room, after refusing his advances several times. The mother appears particularly sexy and confident, showing that the film does not need to be erotic to see the passion that emerges from this couple.
Differences from the book
The script directed by Michael Showalter therefore deviates slightly from the book, which describes scenes of oral sex between Solène and Hayes. The director also confirmed that there was never any question of filming this type of interaction between the two characters: “We didn’t want to do Red pumps“.
In the end, The Idea of Being With You leans more towards romantic drama than the classic romcom even if the end of the film distances itself from the book by offering a little hope for this atypical couple…
