“The Idea of You” begins with the song “Light On” by Maggie Rogers. As soon as I heard those opening notes, I thought: an Anne Hathaway vehicle about womanhood with an indie pop anthem as its opening needledrop? We are SO back.

But Anne Hathaway’s life isn’t just underscored by pop perfection – she’s dating it, too. In Michael Showalter’s romantic dramedy, Hathaway plays Solène, a 40-year-old divorced mother of a teenager, whose idea of letting loose is going camping by herself. But, an impromptu chaperoning trip to Coachella and a case of mistaken bathrooms puts Solène in the path of Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the 24-year-old lead singer of her daughter’s favorite boy band August Moon (think Harry Styles at the peak of One Direction’s fame). To quote one of Harry’s exes, sparks fly, and Solène finds herself navigating the type of whirlwind romance she could only dream of. 

“The Idea of You” is based on a novel by Robinne Lee, and while Lee has said that Styles is only one of the inspirations for Hayes Campbell, the idea of “What would it be like to date Harry Styles?” does feel very central to this film. It’s not technically based on fanfiction, like “Fifty Shades of Grey” or the One Direction-based “After,” but there is a fanfiction sensibility – and then there’s a little something more. In its entirety, “The Idea of You”  feels more akin to something like “When Stella Got Her Groove Back” – a fantasy fulfilled and an attempt to say something about the way we treat aging women in our culture versus aging men. It’s a big old comfort food movie that elevates its material with real romantic chemistry, tropes executed to perfection, and a true blue movie star at its center. 

The word trope often has a negative connotation, but there’s a reason tropes became such in the first place; people respond to them. And when they’re done well, it can be a great thing. “The Idea of You” is laden with them, from the last-minute, clandestine change of plans that puts Solène at Coachella in the first place, to Solène’s characterization as “not like other moms.” In a VIP tent waiting for the August Moon meet and greet to begin, a woman her age approaches her and asks her which of the boys is her favorite. Solène insists she’s with her daughter, and the woman gives her a knowing smile. But Solène isn’t trying to play it cool – she doesn’t really care. She has shown up to Coachella armed with Sally Rooney’s “Normal People” (she’s literally reading at a music festival), and could care less about a silly boy band. 

So much so that she doesn’t recognize Hayes Campbell during their later meet cute (she mistakes his trailer for the VIP restroom, they flirt and he ends up taking his shirt off for, you know, reasons). That meet cute introduces the strongest selling point for “The Idea of You” – besides Hathaway herself, but we’ll get to that – which is the chemistry between the film’s two leads. I’m willing to forgive a lot of silliness if there’s a spark on screen, and Galitzine and Hathaway are able to stoke that fire from the very beginning. Not only is Galitzine a believable boy band star with a great voice, but he’s a proper flirt, able to oscillate between bashful boyishness and sensuality with ease. When Solène mentions her “daughter’s father” (played, in an exquisite piece of casting, by Reid Scott, otherwise known as Dan Egan from “Veep”), he doubles back, wanting to know if she is, in fact, single. When she says she is, he lets out a little noise of confirmation that’s laden with promise. The moments of conversation between them are giggle-inducing, and the film’s love scenes are incredibly sultry, lit warmly and content to linger in the slowness of the moment. 

But as good as Galitzine is, this movie wouldn’t be half the joy it is without Hathaway’s performance. “The Idea of You” is a romance, yes, but it also makes an attempt to explore the ways in which our culture treats aging women differently than men. Solène never really had a chance to live in her 20s. She had a child young, and although the relationship between mother and daughter here is treated with the utmost importance, there’s a sense that Solène missed out on the type of adventure and passion that decade brings – an adventure and passion that wouldn’t be afforded to the same woman two decades later. That mix of desire and shame underscores Hathaway’s performance at all times, one overtaking the other depending on the context. In a monologue about her ex-husband’s infidelity, she speaks of the experience with resignation, as though she was an idiot to expect anything more. But her eyes speak volumes – there’s a wish for something better, something she feels she has aged past. 

The romance, of course, comes with ups and downs – no one ever said dating a 24-year-old superstar was easy – and ends in a bold, exciting manner that a more “serious” movie might have nixed from the outset. But “The Idea of You” is not interested in trying to be realistic, or to tamp down the romantic fantasies of its characters or audience – and it’s all the better for it.