Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
Here’s the trailer:
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If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway) is a woman about to turn 40, owns an art gallery in Silver Lake, CA (a north L.A. neighborhood), is divorced from Daniel (Reid Scott), has a 16-year-old daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), with hopes to spend a weekend by herself on a camping trip. Her plans change when her lawyer ex and his new wife, Eva (Perry Mattfeld)—also a lawyer in his firm—are called away for an important client meeting in Houston so Solène must fill in as the chaperone for Izzy and a few of her friends who’re on their way to the Coachella music festival out in the desert of southern CA because Daniel’s already bought tickets for them, plus a pricey Meet-and-Greet with famous (fictional) British boy band August Moon, fronted by 24-year-old Hayes Campbell (Nicolas Galitzine). While in the backstage area Solène needs a restroom, goes into a trailer she thinks is for that purpose but quickly realizes it’s Hayes’ trailer. They chat for a bit, he finds her interesting, she tries to keep a distance, then learns Izzy thinks the band's now too "7th grade” for her, yet in the actual concert Hayes goes off schedule by adding the song, “Closer,” which he dedicates to Solène, which does impress her. When she’s back home, Hayes suddenly shows up at her gallery one day, buys everything in the place for his London flat, then goes with her to a storage place to see even more art. Being hungry, they go to her home for lunch due to her concern that being in a public restaurant would invite too much fan and press attention; while there they talk about their lives, it’s clear he’s quite attracted to her, but she resists, saying she’s too old for him. Rebuffed but not upset, he departs but quietly leaves his watch behind, giving him an excuse to see her again (I’ll be referencing Seinfeld later: George Costanza once used a similar object-left-behind tactic, somewhat successfully, at least for a little while). Hayes is persistent with lots of texts; he invites Solène to join him in NYC, which she finally decides to do, given that Izzy’s away at a summer camp.
She comes to his hotel, steamy sex easily happens, then he invites her to join him on the band’s European tour, which she accepts but doesn’t tell Izzy the truth about why she’s headed across the Atlantic. After a few stops, the group’s taking a short break in the south of France where the other (younger) women traveling with the guys tell her that the “sudden dedication” tactic is a regular ploy for Hayes who’s had other affairs with older women. Solène feels hurt by this, tells Hayes she wants to leave; he arranges a flight back to L.A. for her, yet doesn’t want her to go. Back home she meets with Daniel, denies anything about Hayes (gossip items have popped up), also learns secretly from Eva she’s soon to leave Daniel. Solène finds out she can’t keep her time with Hayes a secret, though, due to paparazzi photos and social media posts which generate a lot of hostility toward her as August Moon fans can’t understand why Hayes would want this older woman. ⇒Things get worse when she picks up Izzy at the camp, really angry at Mom for being lied to, although they soon reconcile. It’s not so easy for Izzy, though, because at school she starts getting all sorts of lewd comments and requests from friends (including a guy she’s attracted to), so despite having tried to just go public with the affair after Hayes comes to L.A. for a solo recording session (she visits him, they reconnect), Solène again breaks it off for Izzy’s sake, although Hayes tells her he intends to start up with her again in 5 years after Izzy’s off at college. Sure enough, 5 years later he’s apparently successful with a solo acoustic career, appears on British TV (actual The Graham Norton Show) in an interview where he says he’s off to L.A. to see an old friend (studio audience applauds, indicating the scandal’s resolved), shows up at her gallery again, she’s tearfully-happy to see him.⇐
So What? I’ve often found this movie described as a romcom, yet I find it to generally be more “rom” than “com,” despite a few funny circumstances; from what I’ve glanced over in a few other reviews I know it’s based on a very successful novel of the same name by Robinne Lee (2017), an actor with a fairly-extensive career already, but this is her first literary excursion, which, based on those review comments, seems to have been a bit more serious in tone than how it was transferred to the screen by Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt, you I can’t offer anything more definitive about that. Certainly this cinematic product challenges the often-condemning attitude toward “cougars”—older women who see younger men as desirable “prey,” often because of their peak-years sexual prowess in contrast to what these women find in many men of their own age group—in that Solène is frequently bothered by her 16-year seniority over Hayes, breaks the relationship off more than once due to the complications it generates because of his fame, with fan/media expectations about how he should be spending his private time, although older male celebrities seem to get more of a pass on that topic when they link up with notably younger women, for example 79-year-old Michael Douglas with 54-year-old Catherine Zeta-Jones, although their parallel successful careers would seem to negate any charges of gold-digging on her part, trophy-hunting on his, unlike the young woman in The Eagles' "Lyin' Eyes" (on their 1975 One of These Nights album) who’ll “dress up all in lace and go in style [… even though] it breaks her heart to think her love is only / Given to a man with hands as cold as ice [… face it, crass manipulator] You’re still the same old girl you used to be.”
This is definitely not a reverse-situation with Solène and Hayes as he’s the one constantly pushing on her to connect, seems to truly be invested in her despite having had previous encounters with older women. Where the interest is real—not monetary—I have no complaints about any couple who truly care about each other, no matter what their age difference is, though for me I’ve never been in a situation where a woman 16 years my senior was romantically attractive (friendship, respect, yes; romance, no) especially when I was 24 (somewhat because I was married at the time [not successfully]) as a woman of 40 would have likely seemed to me to be more in the realm of my 51-year-old mother, but Hayes says Solène isn’t his mother (his parents divorced when he was young) so he’s sincerely followed a different path than I have yet to conceive of (and, at 76, I doubt I’d be charmed by any 92-year-old, unless it’s Nina [who was, like Solène, approaching 40 when we married, but I was 42] when we’re both nonagenarians, assuming we’d be still coherently-alive then).
Another question regarding society’s attitudes toward age differences leads me to concerns about Hayes’ proposition that all they have to do is wait 5 years until Izzy’s out of high school, then none of them will face such ostracization. So, our social-media influencers will be more tolerant of a 29-year-old pop star involved with a 45-year-old woman while Izzy’s new friends will be more mature just because she’ll be a college junior rather than a high-school sophomore? Maybe so, yet I wouldn’t bet on it, but obviously this movie wants to treat us to a rosier future than the main characters are experiencing in the present, so it’s all fiction after all, especially when the intention is to leave us satisfied, not disappointed. Now, one more item about age differences: In case you missed the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival last month (April 12-14, 19-21) you can now at least get a sense of it from The Idea … with August Moon, but if you were there you wouldn’t have seen them anyway because they only exist in this movie. Further, you probably won’t be surprised to learn I’ve never been to this Coachella shindig, as the acts there are generally a few decades too young for my tastes (most of whom I’ve never even heard of, except a few like Doja Cat and Lana Del Rey, although even there I have little awareness of their music), but I—along with Nina—have been to this venue at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, CA (near Palm Springs/Palm Desert); we went there in October 2016 to see acts more appropriate to our way-past-65 ages at the 3-day Desert Trip Festival for Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones (Friday, just after Dylan got the Nobel Prize in Literature, although he never mentioned it; Mick Jagger did), Neil Young, Paul McCartney (Saturday), The Who, Roger Waters in full Pink Floyd-mode (Sunday), so I do have a sense of what it’s like to be in their massive outdoor arena with a huge crowd (fortunately, there were buses to get us back and forth to our hotel; Solène just seemed to know where she was going the whole time—except for that crucial restroom).
Bottom Line Final Comments: If you’d like to watch The Idea of You you’ll have to turn to streaming where it’s available only on Amazon Prime Video (but, even if you’re not a subscriber, you can see it for free under their 30-day trial policy), which you’d get a general sense of support from the CCAL to do so because the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are 83%, although the Metacritic average score is considerably lower at 67%. As an example of the supporters we have Peter Debruge of Variety who says: “For all its fantastical qualities, the movie is realistic in the way it anticipates social media and real media (the online tabloids, at least) reacting to the news of Solène and Hayes’ being together. It’s a sad truth that, as Solène tells art-world bestie Tracy (Annie Mumolo), the world doesn’t want her to be happy. Technically, the fans don’t want Hayes to be happy either, preferring to think of him as single and searching for them to fill that empty space in his heart.” Not everyone was so impressed, though; witness Avi Offer of The NYC Movie Guru who emphatically states (scroll down a bit, if necessary): “The Idea of You has little to nothing to say about love, divorce, heartbreak, motherhood or loneliness. How introspective are Solène and Hayes? What have they learned from their mistakes? The answers to those questions aren't clear because the film barely even explores them. Perhaps the screenplay's systemic problems come from the source material, but that's no excuse for how it tries to sugar-coat Solène's toxic relationship with Hayes and remains unafraid to be emotionally unflinching. The third act doesn't earn its uplift with an eye-rolling, fairytale ending that's not even remotely believable […] At an overlong running time of 1 hour and 55 minutes, The Idea of You is a cheesy, contrived and vapid romantic dramedy.” You'd have to see the movie to know what you'd think, but these types of responses might help you decide.
While you consider any inner-debates about seeing this movie or not (and, if for no other reason, Oscar-winner Hathaway is quite in command of her role while her supporting cast never distracts from the plot’s flow), maybe you’d like to ruminate while listening to my usual review-wrap-up of a Musical Metaphor which could have been "Closer" in that it does speak to the essential points of the movie, at least from Hayes’ perspective (along with this video providing images from it as well)—although if he’s used this tactic before on other women it’s not as pure as he claimed it to be with Solène—but I can’t help also thinking about the negative aspects of this current romance (as do many others as well as Solène at times) which brings me to the most famous March-August (I don’t think Hayes and Solène really qualify as May-December, nor do the couple I’m about to reference) affair I can think of, Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) and Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft) in The Graduate (Mike Nichols [winner of that year’s Best Director Oscar], 1967), so even though the affair in our current movie is not just “a little secret” and it’s certainly not possible to “hide it from the kids,” I do think this famous Simon & Garfunkel song fits a bit of what’s going on in The Idea of You, even though it’s intended to be more ironic and cynical than what we see on screen in this new release (certainly, though, the Internet trolls [plus Izzy’s classmates] do fit what’s being implied in this song).
So, here from me is the hit record version of “Mrs. Robinson” (from the S&G 1968 Bookends album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkXyreJV604 (also with images from the film, like with the “Closer” link just above) as we allude to a solid sense of the possible-pitfalls of an age-extended relationship (the version of this song used in The Graduate’s soundtrack is incomplete compared to this '68 album version). One final thought about controversies that come up with this song is the reference to how Joe DiMaggio has “left and gone away,” which Joe took as an odd insult back then until Paul explained it was intended as a tribute to how his time of universally-accepted heroism had seemed gone from the troubled sociopolitical world of the late ‘60s (a compliment which DiMaggio accepted), so just to warp all of this up here’s one more version of the song by Simon, sung live at Yankee Stadium on a Joe DiMaggio tribute day to a rousing reception from the crowd. With that, all of the parallels conclude, for I doubt Hayes will be running off with Izzy on a city bus anytime soon.
SHORT TAKES
Unfrosted (Jerry Seinfeld) rated PG-13 96 min.
Here’s the trailer:
Believe it or not, I’m actually going to provide you with a short (!) review of a silly Netflix movie that marks the directorial debut of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, which for me—as a long-time devotee of both NBC TV’s Seinfeld sitcom (1989-‘98) and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s HBO/Max sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-2024)—I found its goofy humor to be consistently witty even though the OCCU would try their best to steer you away from it, with the Rotten Tomatoes positives at 39%, the Metacritic average score at (slightly higher than RT for a change) 43%, so if you’re a Netflix subscriber you can choose for yourself, if not it doesn’t matter anyway. The story is about a fierce competition in Battle Creek, MI in 1963 between Kellogg’s and Post to come up with a successful breakfast alternative to cereal and milk, with lots of parodies of ‘60s culture thrown in including the NASA moon mission, Nikita Khrushchev, JFK, Chef Boy Ardee, Jack LaLanne, and much more, with a cast that includes (along with many others) Seinfeld, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Schumer, Hugh Grant, Peter Dinklage, Tony Hale, and Cedric the Entertainer. For me, though, the highlight is a scene where AMC TV's Mad Men’s Jon Hamm and John Slattery pitch Kellogg’s with a name for their product which ultimately becomes Pop-Tarts due to a small mistake by Walter Cronkite (Kyle Dunnigan). There’s no significance here, just a funny diversion from the traumas of our day. As for a Musical Metaphor, once again I’ll return to Simon & Garfunkel’s Bookends album for “Punky’s Dilemma” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI3svf3___E, a similarly-silly song like the movie, with the most obvious connections to Unfrosted in the first 2 verses, but the final one gets more serious regarding conscription/refusal for the Vietnam War, reflective of weighty issues bubbling around in the early ’60s which Unfrosted consciously avoids. (When trying to remember the name of Unfrosted I kept coming up with Defrosted, but that would have to be about trying to salvage the Thanksgiving dinner leftovers from the freezer which could well be Seinfeld’s or David’s next project).
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
(1) A restored version of Let It Be is still sad to watch for Beatles fans (2) What's new on Netflix in May 2024; (3) What's new on Amazon Prime Video in May 2024; (4) What's new on Hulu in May 2024; (5) What's new on DIsney+ in May 2024; (6) What's new on Max in May 2024.
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