Topline
The buzzy new Anne Hathaway romantic comedy, “The Idea of You,” premiered on Amazon Prime on Thursday, and fans have noticed plenty of similarities between the male lead and pop singer Harry Styles—though the author of the novel the movie is based on and the film’s stars have recently distanced themselves from the Styles comparisons.
“The Idea of You” debuted on Amazon Prime Video May 2. (Photo by Manoli Figetakis/WireImage)
Key Facts
“The Idea of You” stars Hathaway as a single mother who takes her daughter to the Coachella music festival, only to fall in love with a younger British singer from a popular boy band, played by Nicholas Galitizine.
Fans have noted various similarities between Styles and Galitizine’s character: Both are tattooed, charismatic British singers who launched their career in a five-piece boy band that amassed a fanbase of young women and girls.
Robinne Lee, author of the 2017 novel, told Vogue in a 2020 interview the male lead was conceived as “Prince Harry meets Harry [Styles]” with additional inspirations from her personal life, though she clarified the book was not meant to be about Styles.
But Lee told The Daily Beast on Friday that the Styles comparison “feels a little reductive of what was written,” criticizing comparisons fans have made between the love affair in the book and film to Styles’ previous relationship with actress Olivia Wilde, who is 10 years older than Styles.
Galitizine told People Magazine he wants to “distance myself from that comparison” to Styles, stating his character is his own person with “his own struggles and wants and tastes” who was inspired by many different artists and boy bands.
Crucial Quote
“Is there some Harry [Styles] in there? Yes. But there’s like 23 other people in there,” Lee told TODAY.com “The Prince Harry references don’t get picked up on, and I mentioned him in the book directly,” adding other inspirations for her novel included Eddie Redmayne, Michael Hawkins, Duran Duran, John Taylor and Simon Le Bon.
Tangent
Several reviews of “The Idea of You”—which has been positively received by critics, with an 82% score on Rotten Tomatoes—have noted the Styles similarities. The Daily Beast critic Fletcher Peters wrote that “Styles gets his own ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ in ‘The Idea of You,’” adding that Galitizine plays a “perfect Harry Styles-type figure, oozing charisma with a faint whisper of something mysterious lurking beneath those shiny green eyes.” New York Times critic Alissa Wilkinson wrote the premise of the film is the question: “What if Harry Styles, the British megastar and former frontman of One Direction, fell madly in love with a hot 40-year-old mom?”
Key Background
Lee told The Guardian she was inspired to write “The Idea of You” after watching a boy band’s music videos and coming up with the idea of a love interest running off with the lead singer—though she declined to name which boy band it was. She characterized the book in a Vogue interview as “a story about a woman approaching 40 and reclaiming her sexuality and rediscovering herself,” rather than strictly a romance. She published her novel in 2017, and Vogue reported the book became a sleeper hit during the pandemic, though sales had steadily increased every year until that point.
Surprising Fact
Styles was the inspiration for the “After” novel series, written by Anna Todd. Todd began writing her novels on the online fiction writing website Wattpad in 2013, but she has since published five books in the series, and five films based on her novels have been produced.
Further Reading
‘The Idea of You’ is giving some One Direction fans the opportunity to relive the band’s glory days (NBC News)
‘The Idea of You’ Creator Calls Harry Styles Comparisons ‘Reductive’ (The Daily Beast)
The Sleeper Hit of the Pandemic? A Three-Year-Old Romance Novel Inspired by Harry Styles (Vogue)
