The Concept of You spoilers forward.
“Has anyone right here learn the ebook?” Anne Hathaway, star of The Concept of You, requested the stay studio viewers of The Tonight Present this week. She was met with full silence, which prompted host Jimmy Fallon to interject, “We don’t learn. That is The Tonight Present. You wanna go over to Stephen Colbert if you happen to wanna get folks that learn books.”
However there’s, in truth, a rabid fan base for Robinne Lee’s 2017 novel, which has impressed the film now streaming on Prime Video. For proof, look no additional than a latest screening of the movie at New York Metropolis’s 92nd Road Y, the place a number of impassioned viewers members audibly corrected panelists who apparently mispronounced Hathaway’s character’s title. Directed by Michael Showalter, who cowrote the movie with Jennifer Westfeldt, The Concept of You follows Solène (so-lehn, thanks very a lot), a divorced 40-year-old artwork gallerist who falls for Nicholas Galitzine’s Hayes Campbell—the 24-year-old frontman of her teen daughter Izzy’s (Ella Rubin) former favorite boy band, August Moon.
Improvement on a movie adaptation of the ebook started when Lee, an actor who appeared within the fan-fiction-inspired Fifty Shades films, handed a duplicate of her tangentially comparable novel to Gabrielle Union, her costar in 2003’s Ship Us From Eva. Union, who starred in her personal Might-December romance in final yr’s Netflix rom-com The Good Discover, stated on the 92nd Road Y occasion that she associated to the fabric as somebody who’s married to “a youthful man with an enormous life.” After approaching board as a producer, Union enlisted Oscar-winning producer Cathy Schulman and Hathaway, who grew to become a staunch supporter of the supply materials. “I needed to do proper by them,” she beforehand advised Leisure Tonight of the ebook’s followers. “They love this factor and I take their love very significantly.”
Whereas the film stays true to the contours of the novel, there are a number of modifications to be discovered—from the removing of sure supporting characters to a shift in location from Century Metropolis, California, to Silver Lake. “For me, it was like, there’s a fantastic model of this film that’s extra just like the ebook, [but] I’m simply not the suitable particular person to do this,” director Michael Showalter advised IndieWire. “So in order for you me to do the film, it will be a unique form of film.” Forward, a have a look at a number of the most noticeable variations from ebook to display, plus a dive into whether or not Galitzine is taking part in a model of Harry Kinds.
The Harry Kinds of It All
Though The Concept of You is a piece of fiction, Hayes Campbell bears an in depth resemblance to real-life former boy band member Harry Kinds. Although the movie enlisted One Route songwriter Savan Kotecha to write down music for August Moon, Galitzine has shrugged off the affiliation: “It was vital to create somebody who felt new and authentic and never a shoddy impersonation of this particular person,” he advised BuzzFeed.
“This was by no means presupposed to be a ebook about Harry Kinds,” Robinne Lee advised Vogue in 2020. “It was presupposed to be a narrative a few girl approaching 40 and reclaiming her sexuality and rediscovering herself, simply on the level that society historically writes girls off as fascinating and viable and entire.”
