The Idea of ​​You: 6 Biggest Changes Between the Harry Styles-Inspired Book and the Movie

The idea of ​​you spoilers ahead.

“Has anyone here read the book?” » Anne Hathaway, star of The idea of ​​you, asked the live studio audience to Tonight’s show this week. She was met with complete silence, prompting host Jimmy Fallon to interject: “We’re not reading.” It is Tonight’s show. You want to go towards Stéphane Colbert if you want people to read books.

But there’s actually a rabid fan base for Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel, which inspired the film currently streaming on Prime Video. For proof, look no further than a recent screening of the film at New York’s 92nd Street Y, where a few eager audience members audibly corrected panelists who had apparently mispronounced Hathaway’s character’s name. Directed by Michael Showalter, who co-wrote the film with Jennifer Westfeldt, The idea of ​​you follows Solène (so-lehn, thank you very much), a 40 year old divorced art gallery owner who is cracking Nicolas Galitzine‘s Hayes Campbell, the 24-year-old frontman of his teenage daughter Izzy’s (Ella Rubin) favorite former boy band, August Moon.

Development of a film adaptation of the book began when Lee, an actor appeared in the fan-fiction-inspired film. Fifty Shades films, handed a copy of his tangentially similar novel to Gabrielle Union, his co-star in 2003. Deliver us from Eva. Union, who starred in her own May-December romance in last year’s Netflix romantic comedy The perfect find, said at the 92nd Street Y event that she approached the subject as someone married to “a younger man with a big life.” After joining the team as a producer, Union brought on Oscar-winning producer Cathy Schulma.not and Hathaway, who became a staunch supporter of the source material. “I wanted to do what was right by them,” she previously said Entertainment tonight fans of the book. “They love this thing and I take their love very seriously.”

Although the film remains faithful to the outlines of the novel, several changes are noted, from the removal of certain secondary characters to the move from Century City, California, to Silver Lake. “To me, it felt like there was a great version of this movie that was more like the book, (but) I’m just not the right person to do that,” director Michael Showalter told IndieWire . “So if you want me to make the movie, it would be a different kind of movie.” Ahead, a look at some of the most notable differences from book to screen, as well as an analysis of whether Galitzine is playing a version of Harry Styles.

The Harry styles of it all

Although The idea of ​​you is a work of fiction, Hayes Campbell closely resembles former boy band member Harry Styles. Although the film tapped One Direction songwriter Savan Kotecha to write August Moon’s music, Galitzine shrugged off the association: “It was important to create someone who felt new and original and which is not a shoddy imitation of that person,” he said. told BuzzFeed.

“This was never supposed to be a book about Harry Styles,” Robinne Lee said. Vogue in 2020. “It was supposed to be the story of a woman approaching middle age, reclaiming her sexuality and rediscovering herself, just when society traditionally views women as desirable, viable and whole. »