“I would have been obsessed with this movie when I was a girl. I would have actually been so deeply in love with it,” Anne Hathaway tells me, eyes aglow and raising her hands up to her face almost as if she can picture her younger self discovering The Idea of You, her new romantic comedy directed by Michael Showalter.

Taking on a Notting Hill-esque premise, the Academy Award winner plays Solène, the divorced owner of a Silver Lake art gallery still processing the trust issues left behind by her cheating ex-husband (Reid Scott). When said dirtbag ex bails on a Coachella bonding trip with their teenage daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin), Solène steps in as chaperone. Giving us our second bathroom meet-cute in consecutive years (hello, Rye Lane!), the ive mother enters what she believes is the VIP-area restroom, only to discover it’s actually the trailer of Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), member of headliner boy band August Moon. He’s 24 and an international heartthrob. She’s about to turn 40 and doesn’t really care who he is. Can I make it any more obvious?

At the time of writing, over 360,000 Letterboxd —or, since we’re working in boy band , approximately eighteen sold-out Madison Square Garden concerts’ worth—have watched The Idea of You, a feat made all the more impressive considering that the vast majority of these viewings have come during the few weeks since its May 2 release on Prime Video. “This film has everything: flawless songs, tattooed Nicholas Galitzine singing and playing piano and guitar, casually gorgeous Anne Hathaway mothering in every sense of the word, that thing where a romantic comedy takes itself seriously while simultaneously indulging in fantasy. Nearly perfect,” writes Daniel.

For some, it’s neither silly nor serious. A movie will never be everyone’s cup of tea, but just as intriguing to me as the outright unfavorable takes are the positive ratings that still carry an almost apologetic, even if joking, self-reflexiveness. Of course, others mince no words about their loyalties, like Sam: “Fuck the haters. Do you not like love?! You can’t be ok with orcs, dwarves, laser swords, giant sand worms, and shit, but not be ok with Harry Styles and this ridiculously good looking, successful, single mom falling in love.”

For others, it’s silly. Even if the film won’t climb onto their end-of-year lists, it still provides a good time watching with friends. Or, in another word, it’s a “guilty pleasure”—though, as a rom-com-loving advocate for indulgence sans strings, I much prefer the term “Goode Film”, coined by Letterboxd editor-in-chief Gemma Gracewood in honor of the critically disregarded yet enthusiastically exalted Leap Year, starring Matthew Goode. I’ll also note that The Idea of You fits an archetype of films that have experienced the biggest upward trend in average ratings like a glove, as previously explored for our site’s first decade. Only time will tell on that front—check back in here when Letterboxd turns twenty!

For others still, embracing a very much “if you get it, you get it” ethos, it’s silly and it’s serious. “Is this the greatest movie ever made? My One Direction-obsessed, delusional, hopeless romantic, appreciator of hot people with chemistry, Harry Styles-lover-self is inclined to say yes. Had the time of my life with this one; this is what I watch movies for. Please put Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine as lovers in everything. They lit up every single scene and I, for one, couldn’t get enough,” declares Ana.

Considering how The Idea of You plays around with genre expectations, Hathaway reflects, “We were so lucky to have Michael Showalter direct us because I think that in anyone else’s hands, irony might have taken over or, in equal measure, sincerity. He keeps us on this knife edge between being aware of the form and subverting it. We did a Q&A at the end of the SXSW screening, and I never really realized this is what Michael was doing—of course, it makes sense—but he was like, ‘I wanted to hold them off from kissing as long as possible.’ He doesn’t like us to talk about it, but he’s so a master in this genre in particular: the way he’s able to hold the audience, reveal the characters, the way he wants their attraction to each other to actually just be rooted in hanging out. All of that feels very, very exciting.”

Noting Hayes’s insecurities around his success and artistry, Showalter (a rom-com stalwart now, having also directed The Big Sick, The Lovebirds and Hello, My Name Is Doris) says, “I like finding something that’s cool in something that’s not supposed to be cool, and so boy bands, there’s something very sincere about it. There’s something very vulnerable, almost.” But for the director, who co-wrote the script with Jennifer Westfeldt, the allure of pop music more broadly than boy bands alone, fascinates him.

“You have this nice moment where the most popular music is also some of the most interesting music,” he explains. “And that’s both men and women, whether it’s Billie Eilish or Harry Styles or Taylor Swift. So for me, the opportunity to make a movie about a boy band was really an opportunity to have a movie with great music in it and great dancing and great costumes, and not to make fun of boy bands or point at them and say, ‘Oh, isn’t this silly?’ The harder thing to do is to legitimize it and actually get beneath the thing to realize, ‘Well, really what is happening? What is special about this?’”

To his point, August Moon’s discography comes courtesy of Savan Kotecha, a songwriter and producer responsible for shaping some of the greatest pop hits of the past fifteen years, including the One Direction song that started it all: ‘What Makes You Beautiful’.

A quick word on the tattooed British elephant in the room: though The Idea of You has been hailed as “fanfictioncore” and “straight out of wattpad”, the source novel of the same name by Robinne Lee is, in actuality, not fanfiction. According to the author, Harry Styles is just one small inspiration for Hayes Campbell, who can also consider Prince Harry, Eddie Redmayne and Duran Duran among his many celebrity references.

For his part, Galitzine has also intentionally distanced Hayes from Harry, nodding instead toward golden era boy bands like Backstreet Boys and twinkle-toed K-pop groups like BTS. (As a proud attendee of the 2013 Take Me Home Tour, I’ll back him up here: the unchoreographed boys on the stairs simply never could’ve danced before they walked, thank you very much.)

This review also gets to the heart of why The Idea of You hits right for some : Anne Hathaway gets to do so much here. “I like the idea of Anne Hathaway being able to make any movie she wants, and the rest of us just being appreciative that we get to watch it,” reflects Joe. Her casting creates new layers: as Solène navigates a maelstrom of double-standard-informed misogyny, the film almost reads as a meta middle finger toward the heinous online toxicity targeted at the actor in the early 2010s.

On a more playful note, watching Queen Amelia Mignonette Thermopolis Renaldi of Genovia and His Royal Highness, Prince Henry George Edward James Hanover-Stuart Fox link up feels like more than a fun tie-in—it’s also indicative of how both Hathaway and Galitzine had their respective breakout moments with lighter fare centered on love, joy and blossoming into one’s own (Don’t forget Ella of Frell either!). In an industry—and society—with very real hang-ups surrounding women and age, there’s something exhilarating in The Idea of You’s central thesis prioritizing those ideas.

When I bring up that royal connection to Hathaway, she smiles, saying, “I loved what you said about not underestimating women and girls as an audience. I will go one step further in saying: let’s feed them. Let’s feed them stories that are about them. Let’s feed them stories that are born of love and ion and hope. And let’s do that for everybody.” Those are also stories that don’t stop here, deliciously. Galitzine and his Red, White & Royal Blue co-star Taylor Zakhar Perez recently announced an sequel, and the long-awaited third entry for The Princess Diaries is currently in development as of April 2024. Luca Guadagnino, I believe you’ve been summoned?

A fuzzy fluffy little rom-com, a favorite comfort movie, a girl dinner, a slumber party pick, a Goode Film—however choose to frame their affection might be beside the point at the end of the day. I’d venture what matters most is that full-belly contentedness that The Idea of You provides those with eager plates, those who already look forward to their next serving, like Channing, who’s logged the film an impressive seven times. A missive from their fifth watch sums it all up best: “It was a beautiful night for a beautiful movie. I have a long thousand something word review waiting in the wings but… that doesn’t matter anymore. I’m at peace.”