Rom-Dram Face Off: "The Idea of You" vs "A Family Affair"
A side-by-side comparison of two competing streamer rom-drams featuring a love match between an older, gorgeous woman (non-celeb) and a younger man (celeb).
🥊 On the left, weighing in at 6.3/10, we have The Idea of You [Review here] on Prime featuring a sizzling Instagram-ready boy band singer in his early 20s (Nicholas Galitzine) and an equally photogenic 40-something art gallery owner and divorced mother of a teen (Anne Hathaway). Both dabble in Snapchat filters and look hot at all times.
🥊 On the right, weighing in at 5.4/10, we have A Family Affair, streaming on Netflix, with 5-time Academy Award nominee (1-time winner), Nicole Kidman as a famous writer and someone who cuts a clean Nancy Meyers-directed film figure (middle-aged woman with fabulous wealth and house, ageless looks, and 1st world problems, but still problems) and Zac Efron moonlighting as mandible-man but whose day gig is being a ridiculously famous and privileged actor who sometimes acts up and mistreats people.
Rules of Engagement & Selection Criteria: Lots of Pictures & Mood Making Moments. What’s that, you ask? Just scroll down, impatient one.
The Break-Up & The Make-Up
Note: I’ve made up the words below for effect.
Solène (The Idea of You):
“No, we can’t do this. It’s not working. Your friends are too young and you want to sow your wild oats. I can tell!”
[Gets up and stomps out of the Italian villa. Spends time away from Hayes. Is miserable-ish.]
Reunites with Hayes:
“Ok, fine let’s do this.”
[Some more sex and family time with Hayes fitting in their family structure but then her daughter is bullied, etc.]
“We are SO DONE! See me in 5 years.” [tears and years go by]
Hayes shows up at her door when her daughter is in college. She’s been saving herself as has he.
The audience: Wait, what? But also, OMG I so called it.
Zara (A Family Affair):
“Chris makes me write an apology letter begging for forgiveness anytime I make a mistake, Mom. He’s a giant turd. Did he take you to New York for your first date? Like the film set? Yeah, ok, he does that with all his dates.”
[Zara sobs. Her mom looks at Chris like he’s an alien or a douche. He’s both.]
“He sucks Mom and he’s planning to break up with you. ”
[This is after a nice Christmas spent at Kathy Bate’s mountain cabin (Bates plays Kidman’s mother-in-law. Kidman is a widow. ) And to clarify, this is not Misery Kathy Bates. Going to her house is highly enjoyable]
Chris leaves and Brooke gives her daughter a dressing down. It’s pretty phenomenal. Zara does some major relationship repairs with a few people (her best friend, one of them) and learns she was out of line.
AND GET THIS, Zara and her grandma, Kathy Bates conspire to bring Chris and Brooke back together using a ploy of meeting in front of horny melons at a staged grocery store (ok they are “horned” but the other way sounds better). It’s a pitch-perfect ending for this crew.
Final note: Brooke’s relationship with Zara is much more developed than Solène’s with Izzy. I credit the writing of the film for this, but also Kidman and King are great actresses and share credible mother-daughter chemistry.
The Verdict - YOU WEIGH IN:
Community of Beth Watchers or “In Beth Related Algorithm” News
📚 BOOKS! BOOKS! MORE BOOKS! If I’m the self-anointed “Queen of TV & Film Recommendations,” then
is whatever the equivalent is for books. In her June Roundup post, she mentions A Family Affair. If you haven’t checked out her Stack yet, you’re missing out.
🎾 MAD inspiration for the sports motif shown here comes from
who scribes a very compelling, action-oriented sports-themed film review Substack. The format for all of his posts is thrilling. Here’s a recent post of his on a film I found meh but James’ play-by-play of the film made me more appreciative of.
💌
has a wonderful Substack full of insights and personal reflection on love and life. And she’s so funny too! Coincidentally, she wrote a rom-com that is being developed into a screenplay involving a younger celeb man and an older woman. Read all about it below and here’s a 🔗 to her book on Amazon. I've bought it and it’s on my TBR!
BONUS Recommendation
who often teaches me new things about cinema and music every time he posts a note, recommended this new sci-fi romance film set in outer space (I think) called Molli and Max in the Future. It exudes Woody Allen meets When Harry Met Sally vibes. It stars Zosia Mamet who is perfect in every role. My favorite role of hers of late is her buttoned-up lawyer character opposite Kaley Cuoco’s Cassie in The Flight Attendant. Season 2's The Flight Attendant takes a more serious look at Cassie's alcoholism and the long haul to self-acceptance
In the first season of HBO Max’s The Flight Attendant, an adaptation based on NY Times bestselling author, Chris Bohjalian’s book, Kaley Cuoco (Penny in Big Bang Theory and John Ritter’s daughter in 8 Simple Rules) takes some big swings doubling her duties as Exec Producer and the anti-heroine star of the dramedy about a flight attendant who is hell ben…
Thank you so much for the mention!!!
I love the way you structured this comparison!
It was hard to pick between the two films because there were things I liked and disliked in both of them (I ended up going with The Idea of You).
You’re right, the mother daughter relationship was much more fleshed out in A Family Affair. Plus in The Idea of You, I thought mother and daughter looked more like sisters. But then again, I thought A Family Affair was more of a mother/daughter film anyway because it was the daughter’s story (shout out to Joey King) as much as it was a romance between older woman and younger man story.
I believed the chemistry more between Solène and Hayes. As a pure romcom, I think I liked the idea of you more.
I finally watched both! The Idea of You wins this one for me. I found it to be the much more enjoyable film with more believable characters and relationships. I really bought into the relationship between Hayes and Solène. A Family Affair started off entertaining, but fizzled in the second half. I felt no chemistry between Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman either, but Efron is just so effortlessly funny.