Why shagging someone the same age as your kids is never a good idea

Prime Video

3.5 stars

I have no idea why, after 30-odd years at The Canberra Times, that The Idea of You is the first film I've ever been asked to review.

It's the story, basically, of a 40-something Anne Hathaway who decides it's a good thing to shag a man 20 years her junior. Why would I have any experience in that kind of thing?

Okay, look, I'll be honest. Very soon post-divorce, 10 or so years ago, I spent some time (47 minutes) in the company of a neighbourhood lad who was very popular with the school mums.

But he wasn't a pop star, not even close to being a member of some One Direction-type group of lads, but he had what you'd call a certain charm, barely out of his teens. We all thought he was lovely, but in the end he was somewhat disappointing. Bless him.

Given, he might have felt the same way about the experience, for neither I, nor any of us school mums, apart from Carmen, were the equivalent of Anne Hathaway, with her angular collarbones and form-fitting wardrobe, and a name like Solene, with an accent on the first e, and a job in an art gallery. Who are these women anyway?

All the 40-something women I know are called Louise or Meredith or Julie, too busy raising children and cementing their positions in the SES, they're not jetting off to music festivals because their ex-husbands are too busy with their very important jobs. Women too busy, even if they had the good fortune of catching the eye of some hunky Harry Styles-like man, to skip off to a tropical resort with his group of 20-something friends and lounge about drinking cocktails and shooting the shit, or whatever it is that you young things do these days. Anyways. I'm sorry for being so bitter and twisted.

I wanted to love this film. I love romantic comedies. My formative years were built on such movies as When Harry Met Sally, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Pretty Woman, if a story about a hooker can be considered a rom-com

Who doesn't want to watch a film where lovers are twixt, as Shakespeare would say, where all the tropes play out, and maybe, just maybe, there's a happy ending? Who doesn't want to watch a film where an "older woman" ignores all the standards society throws at her and just goes with her heart? And gets the guy.

If you're after a film where a woman of a certain age is, well, satisfied, watch Meryl and Clint in Bridges of Madison County, or Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin in the totally inappropriate but completely loin-stirring Labor Day, or Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham, where the concept of long, slow kisses takes on a whole new meaning.

The Idea of You is based on a book by author Robinne Lee who had a fantasy about leaving her husband for an unnamed boy band member. Good luck to you, Mrs Lee.

Here, that character is played by Nicholas Galitzine, a young Brit who's one of many actors being touted as "the next James Bond". Here, he's oozing about the same sexual chemistry as a cheese sandwich.

But watch him in the television series Mary and George (currently screening on Foxtel), where his mother, played by Julianne Moore, pimps him, her handsome son, off to Tony Curran's King James - (I swear, this will be one of the horniest things you'll watch all year) - and you'll understand why Anne Hathaway even raised an eyebrow.

I think my displeasure with this film came down to the fact I couldn't understand who the target audience was.

Single 40-year-old women? Maybe. A couple of stand-out scenes came when Solene was chatting to age-appropriate men. One shows her some of his "fur babies", another says "Who am I if I'm not Jessica's husband?" We've all been at that point in the dating post-40 (60?) scene.

There's also a fabulous moment where the new partner of Solene's ex-husband, Daniel, reveals that she too thinks he's a bit of a tosser and is leaving him and asks Solene if she'd like to catch up for Thai food or something. I've seen that eye roll, and I probably would have taken her up on the invitation. Solene didn't. It made me feel like a better woman.

Given the film is about a woman who falls in love with a boy band member, I wanted there to be a banging soundtrack. Alas, the only song I can remember is a few seconds of the Wang Chung classic Dance Hall Days.

Even the original song Closer - with lyrics that read "I know that you're a little bit older, but baby rest your head on my shoulder" - didn't do it for me.

There are so many women who would be intrigued by this film, those of us who reluctantly push our age limit on Tinder down to an age revoltingly close to that of our own children, but my only advice is - don't.

No 24-year-old, whether he's a member of a band called August Moon (which sounds somewhat like a sanitary product) or a horny pool boy from Kambah, is going to come to your house under the premise of a sandwich, only to find you have fewer domestic talents than this mother, and then stick around.

I walked away from this with one question. Should I grow my hair and get a fringe? The answer is always no.