From Twilight to the After series to 50 Shades of Gray, there’s no shortage of movies that are based on or rumored to be based on fanfiction. The latest is The Idea of You, starring Anne Hathaway (Solène) as a middle-aged mother and Nicholas Galitzine as the suave, sexy, and 24-year-old Harry Styles double.
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The plot follows Hathaway as she takes her daughter to Coachella and meets Galitzine’s character (Hayes Campbell). The movie follows their whirlwind summer romance, across Europe on his band’s world tour. A few days after the movie’s release, the reviews are in from the Northwestern students that have already seen it.
YANYAN LI: given the low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised.
That was Yanyan Li, a Medill freshman who watched it with a Weinberg freshman Abigail Jacob after she finished her homework. Most students watched the movie in groups or with others.
Abigail Jacob: We especially love to watch movies that we know are going to be bad. It’s like a bonding experience. And we complain about it to each other.
Weinberg junior Raquel Weinstein watched the movie over the weekend, with RTVF junior Maria Katsogridakis. Students were also drawn in by marketing through TikTok, both official and fan-made.
RAQUEL WEINSTEIN: I didn’t hear much I think I mostly saw like a few tik toks about it and like trailers. And I knew it was kind of corny but amazing
MARIA KATSOGRIDAKIS: I don’t think I heard anything I watched like, I got tiktoks. Um, for the most part, it was just the tik toks that were like, the official ones. So I got different trailers, different clips of the movie. I will say that because we watched it like one or two days after it came out. I did get a few little spoilers, like from edits and stuff.
Another thing they had in common?
[every source mispronouncing/not saying/ being confused about Nicholas Galitzine’s name]
And, although it wasn’t part of the official marketing for the movie, most students had also heard of the fanfiction rumor.
RW: when I was watching the movie my friends and for me is based off a Harry Styles fanfic, which makes a lot of sense looking back.
Although recent movies like Anyone But You have leaned on unconventional marketing tactics like rumored affairs (??!), Robinne Lee, the author of The Idea Of You and Galitzine himself have both stated that Harry Styles was at the most a distant inspiration for their characters. The impulse to distance the movie from its fanfiction roots, might be because fanmade content is often seen as simplistic or overly obsessive.
YL: I personally have never read a Harry Styles fanfiction so I don’t I don’t really know like, I don’t really have a comparison point. But I could definitely see it being I can see where like the Harry Styles fanfiction is coming from but then like, based on stereotypes of fanfiction, I wouldn’t expect like a fanfiction to be as, like nuanced as this movie in this movie is not nuanced. It’s just more nuanced than I think a fanfiction would be
Despite their best efforts, the fanfiction moniker has followed the movie, perhaps because the narrative strikes many as classic fan-inspired wish fulfillment, and contains the kind of social-media inspired moments that might be labeled “cringe.” In fanfiction, this is known as a y/n moment, short for the “your name,” a common way to refer to the main character of self-insert fanfiction.
RW: I think it’s kind of hilarious. And I could like definitely see, like a 40 year old mom like living out her fantasy throughout the movie. But I feel like it added and not that it was like relatable but it like I feel like it made it entertaining. Because it was like, oh, yeah, sure. Like everybody has these fantasies of like their celeb crushes and stuff. So it’s kind of cool to see it played out on the screen.
However, some students ignored the One Direction of it all and ended up loving the film as a part of the rom-com renaissance.
MK: It seemed a little bit fast paced sometimes, but as a book lover, I think it was a pretty good adaptation because it hit all of the fast points, the important points. And just a hopeless romantic. I think it was freaking phenomenal. And the ending was great. And even if it wasn’t like, I’ve already heard things about people being like, yeah, it was just for the Harry Styles fans. Oh, it’s kind of crappy or like whatever.
The film also has an ending that differs from the book, which multiple students found to be one of the most emotional and interesting scenes in the film — in it, both leads display a level of self-awareness Li and Katsogridakis characterized as far above the fanfiction level.
YL: She’s like taking accountability and realizing that there was something problematic in the relationship because I don’t think rom-coms do that enough. I think a lot of other movies, they sort of like romanticize the relationship and not really address what’s wrong with it. Whereas in this story, they kind of addressed it directly.
MK: I think that was really powerful to wrap it all up in that one little like dimly lit scene Like that was good.
Good movie or not, and fanfiction or not, most students are judging the movie not on the star it might be based on, but on how well it sets out to do what these movies do best:
AJ: I feel like I’m not to sound anti intellectual. Like, I love education. I love talking about like, different like ideas and concepts and you know, like, stuff like that. But sometimes you do want to just turn your brain off. I feel like that’s like, what a lot of criticism that fragrant movies receive. It’s like, oh, like, This is bad. And this is bad. Or like, they’re like, Oh, this isn’t like really well produced. I feel like they’re like missing the point of fragrant movies. You know, like, like, it’s not meant to be any of those things. It’s just something to like, unwind to have a little bit of fun.
MK: Even if it wasn’t like the most high-quality film, fancy, whatever, it made me laugh, and it made me cry. And it was really cute.
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For WNUR News, I’m Mika Ellison
