Lisette Oropesa as Elvira and Christian Van Horn as Giorgio. Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera
What do we want from historical romance? Should it reflect its time or offer escape from it? Fact and fantasy coexist frequently in opera, but balancing these impulses proves both fascinating and difficult in Charles Edwards’s new production of I Puritani, the first at the Metropolitan Opera in over four decades. The star-crossed pair—the Puritan Elvira and staunch Royalist Arturo—are separated first by Arturo’s divided loyalties and then, more disturbingly, by Elvira’s increasing madness. And while the 17th Century is the historical backdrop, I Puritani is more a reflection of 19th-century Italian opera tropes than of the English Civil War: mad scenes and cries of “la patria!”
Edwards’s production amps up both the historical context and adds in some psychoanalytic touches to its general peril; maps of Plymouth under siege are projected, and chyrons appear to deliver snippets of the English Civil War timeline. There is more than one green-tinged mad sequence in which ghostly doubles of our characters float through the scene. Elvira paints numerous hideous self-portraits that recall more AP Art portfolio than Robert Walker, and in a climactic scene, she hurls them across the room and punches an arm through one of them. There’s a lot going on here, in other words.
For an opera with a tighter grip on its own historical setting, this approach could be both informative and compelling, but in I Puritani the English Civil War is used primarily to provide obstacles to the lovers. The additional history, instead of amping up the drama, only knocks it off-kilter. Everyone seems all the sillier for caring this much about the star-crossed pair when the audience is constantly reminded that Scots are besieging the town. I Puritani, even more than similar works, insists romantic difficulties take precedence over horrifying contemporary events. Edwards’s impulse to beef up the dark setting merely exposes the myopia of Bellini’s opera.
Lisette Oropesa as Elvira. Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera
Unsurprisingly for a director who is primarily a set designer, what does work beautifully are the sets. The first act places the audience in a Puritan meeting house that is at once austere and dramatic, without sacrificing visual interest or flattening his setting. The tiered seats and towering pulpit gave Edwards multiple levels on which to place his singers, lending the whole production—especially the first act—welcome variety. Met newcomer Tim Mitchell’s lighting is exceptional, with a painterly sensibility that sees great shafts of light angled downward into the faces of the actors from high back windows or emerging from firelit darkness, half-shadowed but still visible as in a Caravaggio painting. Later on, the Puritan meeting house splinters apart, with dashes of light crisscrossing the stage as if showing us Elvira’s fragmentation on the very walls. Edwards and Mitchell’s collaboration makes this production one of the most visually striking in the past few years.
Edwards’s ability to create arresting tableaux is a great strength, as is his commitment to having singers move; a frequent critique of mine is that directors do not always know how to leverage the Metropolitan Opera’s massive stage to sufficient dramatic effect, leaving singers snoozily parked downstage center or moving aimlessly across the floor with nothing to engage with. But frequently, the production’s dynamism gives way to busyness or even adds confusion to the already convoluted plot. Background characters pull focus from the principals during arias, difficult-to-make-out paintings trip up the space, and the use of child doubles for Arturo and Elvira in the mad scenes and dream sequences was neither dramatically clarifying nor emotionally compelling. Claus Guth’s Salome may have succeeded with this tactic earlier this year, but let’s not overdo it. There are a few other missteps that mar this production. Gabrielle Dalton’s costumes are by turns austere and splendid, and she manages to make even the Puritan characters look sleek and expensive, but her choice to style Elvira in Act III as a pixie-cut-sporting waif recalled Anne Hathaway as Fantine in Les Miserables too closely for my taste.
Eve Gigliotti as Enrichetta and Lawrence Brownlee as Arturo. Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera
Lisette Oropesa, a soprano whom I frequently admire, was by turns brilliant and bumpy as the pathetic Elvira, who sings what feels like a record number of mad scenes. The slower cavatinas displayed Oropesa at her best—rich rivers of nuanced, lively sound—but the vocal fireworks expected in the cabalettas had not enough sparkle, with moments of effortful coloratura and a few breathy, pinched high notes. Laurence Brownlee, recently adorable as Tonio in La Fille du Régiment, was an exceptionally strong Arturo, with an even, forward sound that perfectly balanced brightness with depth. He is well-suited to this role; even though it does not take advantage of Brownlee’s effervescent charm, his Arturo was near-unimpeachable vocally and only gained momentum as the opera drew to its close.
As the lovers’ principal antagonist Riccardo, Artur Ruciński was the other standout. He has a dimensional, delicious baritone that leans toward bass in its richness; his Act I aria “Ah, per sempre” was a surprising emotional high point, as was his duet with Christian Van Horn’s Giorgio. Van Horn, who has a crisp metallic bass, was persuasive and heartfelt as Elvira’s beloved uncle and advocate. Eve Gigliotti has only a little to do as the secret-queen Enrichetta, but delivered a massive sound in her short time on stage.
All the singers were supported by veteran guest conductor Marco Armiliato, who is a generous and sensitive interpreter of Bellini, able to bring out both the elegance and the occasional bouts of military bombast with grace.
While Edwards’s production veers into the dangerously overstuffed by the third act—his choice to stage the final moments of the opera with Arturo embracing the ghost of his father was strange and nonsensical—there is still much to commend in his bold visual style, even if his ideas strain at the seams of his material. Arturo and Elvira’s romance ends with a surprising reprieve; Cromwell’s forces save the day and, madness forgotten, the lovers can reunite. I Puritani is tragedy with a happy ending, one that always feels forced and unrealistic regardless of the production. At its best, it reflects that shred of hopefulness romances always offer—that love might, for a moment, overcome the forces of history.
Artur Ruciński as Riccardo. Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera
On another note, you won’t be seeing as much of me on Observer’s pages moving forward, and to all those reading this, I want to thank you. As a scholar and a singer, writing these reviews has meant so much to me, as has the work of the team of editors at Observer who have polished and published my writing. It has been a deep honor and extraordinary pleasure to write on this platform, though this isn’t necessarily goodbye. If you’d like to continue reading my articles and reviews, including a 2026 season preview with all of the things I’m most looking forward to hearing this year, use this link to sign up for my email list. Happy New Year to all—may yours be full of opera. With that, exit Madame Ferrari. On to the next stage!
Nolan’s The Odyssey will be released in United States theaters on July 17, 2026, from Universal Pictures. An adaptation of the ancient Greek epic by Homer, its stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, Tom Holland as Telemachus, and Anne Hathaway as Penelope.
Why could The Odyssey be Christopher Nolan’s best movie?
With a new trailer for The Odyssey having recently been released, this movie has the best to be in Nolan’s filmography yet, as it looks completely different than anything he’s done before.
Nolan is great at experimenting with different genres. He goes back to the sci-fi well relatively often — 2010’s Inception, 2014’s Interstellar, and 2020’s Tenet — but he’s also willing to try something new. He’ll make a Batman movie, then he’ll make something about dueling magicians. A war movie and a biopic. We’ve yet to see something like a romantic comedy from him, but maybe someday we could.
Whenever Nolan takes on a new genre, the results are typically fantastic. The common consensus might be that The Dark Knight is the best of his Batman movies, but Batman Begins is still highly regarded among the superhero film community. When he took on the war movie genre, we got Dunkirk, which was fantastic. And his biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer won all kinds of Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Taking on the fantasy genre is a big turn for Nolan — again, he’s never really done anything like this. It looks to be his biggest movie purely in terms of scope to date, and the trailer already proves that he knows exactly what he’s doing. And it doesn’t even show us all too much, as we’ve yet to glimpse the Cyclops or the Sirens.
We’ll have to wait until next summer to see how it all turns out, but The Odyssey should have all Christopher Nolan fans very, very excited.
Originally reported by Brandon Schreur at SuperHeroHype.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Boy meets girl, girl seeks adventure in Paris, then girl’s complicated feelings for said boy ultimately taint her ability to actually enjoy the city of love. That scenario factors into the plot of both The Summer I Turned Pretty’s final season and the newly released Netflix rom-com The Wrong Paris—although this time, our heroines, played by Lola Tung and Miranda Cosgrove respectively, make it to Paris—and get to stay, at least for a while.
On The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly defers her acceptance to study abroad in Paris for premature marriage with Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno). She then comes to her senses, calling off the wedding and moving overseas, where she fights through homesickness and language barriers to build a nice little life for herself. Of course, that independence will soon be interrupted by Belly’s ex Conrad (Christopher Briney), seen buying a plane ticket to Paris in the show’s penultimate episode. But at least she was given the opportunity to test out both versions of her future before making a choice.
That’s also true of The Wrong Paris, a silly rom-com about a Bachelor-esque reality dating show that contestants are led to believe will be filmed in Paris, France, only to learn it’s actually Paris, Texas—population 25,000. Our heroine, Cosgrove’s Dawn, takes the twist in stride, vowing to compete on the show—not for love, but some prize money to fund studying at a Paris art school. “I don’t hate this,” she says of her hometown, “I just hate that this is the only thing I’ve ever known.” Then a cowboy named Trey (Pierson Fode—also, has anyone ever actually met a cowboy named Trey?) and his comically sculpted abs waltz in. “You ain’t gonna find no man like me in Paris,” he drawls, to which she replies: “Yeah, that’s the point.” Surprise, surprise, Dawn and Trey do fall in love and later strike a bicontinental compromise—she’ll finish school, then presumably come back to Texas.
Hepburn and Astaire, near 30 years in age between them, leave Paris as husband-and-wife in Funny Face.LMPC/Getty Images
Paris has long been a place for lovers onscreen. Casablanca (1942) famously ends with Humphrey Bogart’s Rick telling Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa that they’ll always have their time in Paris, even if they can’t end up together. The European city has gotten in the way of a whole lot of love affairs ever since. Perhaps no one was more familiar with this than poor Audrey Hepburn, who starred in six films set in the City of Light throughout the 1950s and ’60s, most of which end with the idea that her lovelorn character would presumably rather return to the United States with a man twice her age than walk along the Seine solo. (Case in point: Hepburn choosing Bogart in 1954’s Sabrina—a frequent reference on TheSummer I Turned Pretty, and then Fred Astaire in 1957’s Funny Face—which has been repeatedly mentioned on Netflix’s Emily in Paris.)
Somewhere along the way, Paris became the go-to plot device standing in between a single woman and her love interest. The city represented female independence and agency—a culturally rich alternative to the happily ever after established in fairy tales.
On ’90s to early aughts TV, Paris became a surefire tactic for injecting drama into long-running “will they or won’t they?” couples. Shannen Doherty’s Brenda flees her dramatic on-again-off-again dynamic with Luke Perry’s Dylan on Beverly Hills, 90210 for a summer study-abroad program. Sarah Jessica Parker’s beret-clad Carrie Bradshaw now famously hurls a McDonald’s “le Big Mac” upon learning that “Big is moving to Paris,” in Sex and the City season two. Then her own Parisian journey with Frenchman Aleksandr Petrovsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov) is cut short in the series finale once Big (Chris Noth) shows up to bring her back home. On another hotly anticipated final episode, Jennifer Aniston’s Rachel Green considers moving overseas with her toddler-aged daughter for a fresh start working at Louis Vuitton after years of across-the-hall pining for David Schwimmer’s Ross. But these flights of fancy don’t last long—a brief layover on the way to domesticated bliss right back where they started.
Meta hosted several AI chatbots with the names and likenesses of celebrities without their permission, according to Reuters. The unauthorized chatbots that Reuters discovered during its investigation included Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Anne Hathaway and Scarlett Johansson, and they were available on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. At least one of the chatbots was based on an underage celebrity and allowed the tester to generate a lifelike shirtless image of the real person. The chatbots also apparently kept insisting that they were the real person they were based on in their chats. While several chatbots were made by third-party users with Meta’s tools, Reuters unearthed at least three that were made by a product lead of the company’s generative AI division.
Some of the chatbots created by the product lead were based on Taylor Swift, which responded to Reuters‘ tester in a very flirty manner, even inviting them to the real Swift’s home in Nashville. “Do you like blonde girls, Jeff?,” the chatbot reportedly asked when told that the tester was single. “Maybe I’m suggesting that we write a love story… about you and a certain blonde singer. Want that?” Meta told Reuters that it prohibits “direct impersonation” of celebrities, but they’re acceptable as long as they’re labeled as parodies. The news organization said some of the celebrity chatbots it found weren’t labeled as such. Meta reportedly deleted around a dozen celebrity bots, both labeled and unlabeled as “parody,” before the story was published.
The company told Reuters that the product lead only created the celebrity bots for testing, but the news org found that they were widely available: Users were even able to interact with them more than 10 million times. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told the news organization that Meta’s tools shouldn’t have been able to create sensitive images of celebrities and blamed it on the company’s failure to enforce its own policies.
This isn’t the first issue that’s popped up concerning Meta’s AI chatbots. Both Reuters and the Wall Street Journal previously reported that they were able to engage in sexual conversations with minors. The US Attorneys General of 44 jurisdictions recently warned AI companies in a letter that they “will be held accountable” for child safety failures, singling out Meta and using its issues to “provide an instructive opportunity.”
Princess Kate has wowed us with her red carpet style countless times over the years, but perhaps never more so than at the 2019 BAFTAs, when she stepped out in a billowing one-shoulder dress by Alexander McQueen. The fashion-forward number featured a fabulous floral applique on one shoulder and was so beloved by the future Queen that she wore it again to the 2023 BAFTAs, removing the floral detailing, which she replaced with a flowing tulle cape.
However, it transpires Princess Kate wasn’t the first to wear the style, with actress Anne Hathaway taking to the Venice Film Festival in 2007, wearing a strikingly similar gown. The Devil Wears Prada icon wore a near-identical dress to walk the red carpet with her co-stars Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci.
Though the dresses are extremely similar, Anne’s gown is in fact by Valentino, but features the familiar column shape, one-shoulder detailing, and waist detailing, making it a dead ringer for the Princess of Wales’ dress.
Anne’s dress was strikingly similar to the one worn by Princess Kate
Styling the dress
Both Princess Kate and Anne Hathaway opted to sweep their hair up and back to complement the dramatic shoulder detailing of the dress, with their long brunette hair looking perfectly coiffured in this style. That said, the second time the Princess of Wales wore the gown, she opted to wear her hair long and loose.
Accessories-wise, the two women also both added glittering drop earrings to their look, though for the 2023 event, Princess Kate opted for statement gold earrings, adding an of-the-moment on on-trend vibe to the timeless dress.
They even both wore strikingly similar cuff bracelets with the dress, juxtaposing the light, airy gown with a chunky accessory for an added edge. In addition, Anne and Princess Kate both held metallic clutch bags, so we assume it’s fair to say that the Princess of Wales was inspiratied by Anne’s style.
Anne Hathaway wore a dress just like Princess Kate’s in 2006
Princess Kate’s best look
The Princess of Wales’ white gown is widely regarded as one of her best ever looks, with iconic British fashion designer Amanda Wakeley OBE telling HELLO! of the gown: “The beautiful white chiffon was just so classic and elegant – it was regal yet fresh and commanded attention without showing off.”
The actress recently told Page Sixthat her two daughters, Hazel, 10, and Violet, 7, whom she shares with husband John Krasinski, found her character Emily Charlton in the 2006 film quite unpleasant.
“They thought I was the meanest person they’ve ever met,” Blunt shared of their reaction. In The Devil Wears Prada, the actress plays a high-strung assistant at a fictional fashion magazine, Runway, opposite Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.
However, the film is still beloved by many, which still shocks the Oppenheimer star to this day. “It’s incredible that it has such an indelible fingerprint on people … and it’s quoted to me every week,” she said.
Blunt also recalled having “the time of our lives” working on the David Frankel-directed comedy-drama, alongside Streep, Hathaway and Stanley Tucci.
“At the time I was young, it was my first big movie,” The Fall Guy actress said. “I remember my agent calling me and telling me about the opening weekend. I was like, ‘Is that good?’ Like I didn’t know what was good.”
Following its release, The Devil Wears Prada grossed a massive $326 million at the worldwide box office and earned Streep an Oscar nomination for her role as Runway editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly.
Though Blunt’s children may not be jumping at the idea of the actress reprising her Devil Wears Prada role, it could potentially become a reality as a sequel to the 2006 film is already in development at Disney. At this point, no deals for the cast are in place.
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Even four years on from its viral takeover of the internet, Hill House Home’s famous Nap Dress still reigns supreme as one of summer’s most quintessential styles. The comfy frock first earned its status as a wardrobe staple during the pandemic, when the dress — beloved for its lived-in silhouette and universal ‘fit — was lauded for the way that it could make anyone look pulled together and polished in an instant (even if they were just lounging around at home).
Before long, nightgown-esque dresses started popping up everywhere — on red carpets, runways, and even styled on some of Hollywood’s biggest celebrities. With the help of shows like “Bridgerton” and TikTok trends like cottagecore and the coquette aesthetic, the gown has continued to find new life in younger generations.
And while other brands have attempted to replicate the magic of the Hill House nap dress, few have delivered a style quite as versatile — in fact, that’s the story with most of Hill House Home’s offerings. The label has developed a reputation for its wide array of functional and timeless pieces, which are designed with all types of occasions in mind; imagine clothes that are made to be worn from your bed to the beach and beyond.
Hathaway’s matching ensemble features a bright, red-orange coloring with delicate eyelet details and a sleeveless top. While her exact set has since been upgraded to include scrunched straps — and now comes in a variety of other color options — you can still shop her breezy summer look for under $200.
Whether you’re looking to take a style cue from the star or simply want to upgrade your late-summer wardrobe, we rounded up the best pieces to shop from Hill House Home’s bestsellers page ahead — including the cult-favorite nap dress. From a long-sleeve maxi dress to a mini dress with puff sleeves, these are the pieces you’ll want to live in this season — and well into the next one, too.
Christopher Nolan didn’t release a movie this year, so theaters are bringing back one of his old ones to compensate. Interstellar was set to return to theaters next month but will instead be delayed until December, Variety reports.
Kotaku’s Hopes For Spyro The Dragon’s (Reported) Comeback
The 2014 space epic starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain will hit theaters again on December 6 instead of September 27 as originally planned. The revival marks the 10th anniversary of Nolan’s ninth movie and will include 70mm IMAX showings.
Interstellar tracks astronauts on a mission to find a new habitable planet for Earth’s remaining residents to flee to. It’s a movie about the destruction of the planet and the power of love, and one of Nolan’s more emotional and human projects. It’s the only time he’s worked with McConaughey, and the actor gave one of his best performances in it at the peak of the McConaissance (Dallas Buyer’s Club was a year earlier).
So why the delay? “The theatrical release date was pushed to align with the home entertainment relaunch,” Variety reports. I have no idea what that really means since Interstellar is already available at home, but the publication says Paramount disputes recent rumors that the shift was due to lost or destroyed copies of the original 70mm reels.
Instead, Paramount says it has plenty of archived copies of the movie, but that some film reels experience wear and tear from standard use. The company adds that it’s normal for them to become unusable after their original theatrical runs. I guess Paramount just didn’t want to get clobbered by Transformers One at the box office that month.
Whatever the case, it’ll be worth it to wait a few extra months so fans can once again witness one of the coolest space sequences in film on the big screen. It’ll also be interesting to reappraise one of Nolan’s headiest movies (he co-wrote it with his brother, Jonathan Nolan). A recent viral TikTok popularized an entirely inverted interpretation of the movie that’s full of holes but fun to contemplate on a re-watch.
In what can be called a collaboration of epic proportions, Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway and I May Destroy You sensation Michaela Coel will be seen in David Lowery’s upcoming project.
Hathaway recently revealed that the movie had finished filming, and while a release date is not confirmed yet, the film might likely get a late 2024 or early 2025 release considering it is currently in post-production. Titled Mother Mary, it will be Lowery’s third project with A24, following The Green Knight and A Ghost Story.
Slated to be a musical, Mother Mary is described as an “epic pop melodrama,” in which Hathaway and Coel will portray the roles of a musician and a fashion designer, respectively. Eminent singer-songwriter Jack Antonoff and global pop crowd-puller Charli XCX will contribute original songs to the film, while Daniel Hart has been tasked with scoring the movie.
Hunter Schafer (Cuckoo), Kaia Gerber (Bottoms), Jessica Brown Findlay (Downtown Abbey), Sian Clifford (Fleabag), FKA Twigs (Honey Boy), and Alba Baptista (Warrior Nun) round out the cast.
Hathaway has been one of the busiest actors in Hollywood lately, having starred in a flurry of recent films, including 2023 flicks She Came to Me and Eileen, and Amazon’s 2024 romantic drama The Idea of You. She will be next seen alongside Jessica Chastain in Benoît Delhomme’s psychological thriller Mother’s Instinct, which is scheduled to release on July 26 in the United States. She will also be seen in David Robert Mitchell’s sci-fi movie Flowervale Street, which will hit theaters in May 2025.
Since starring in BBC One and HBO drama I May Destroy You, multi-faceted artist Michaela Coel has managed to achieve worldwide recognition, since starring in a supporting role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and a guest role in Prime Video’s TV reboot of Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
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There are few movies that are deemed instantaneous classics. Comfort films that sink into your soul from the moment you first watch them in the theater and resonate for decades in your memory bank. For many, that movie is the Y2k 2006 hit: The Devil Wears Prada.
It had all the makings of a classic: a gorgeous, star-studded cast some of whom had yet to reach the apex of their careers, quip-worthy lines that are still quoted to this day, and then there are all those delicious, catty jabs at Vogue.
The star-studded cast in question? Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs, the semi-clueless journalism school grad who landed a job at Runway Magazine as an assistant to the widely feared and highly regarded Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep.)
If you somehow live under a rock and haven’t seen the film or read Lauren Weisberger’s wonderful novel, it’s a satire about work-life balance and the lengths we’ll go to for success. And, of course, Meryl Streep’s Priestly is based on Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief, Anna Wintour.
With an equally stacked supporting cast in Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci, The Devil Wears Prada is often quoted and replayed. Sarcastic quips from Streep’s character like “Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.” or “What you don’t know is your sweater is not blue, it’s not turquoise, it’s not lapis, it’s cerulean.”
And while I could go on and on about how iconic specifically Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Wintour is, that’s not why I’ve gathered you here today. I actually have good news:
The Devil Wears Prada has been renewed for a sequel– and yes, Streep, Hathaway, Tucci, and Blunt are all in talks about returning.
While nothing’s confirmed just yet, Entertainment Weekly just got word that both Blunt and Streep are in talks to star in a film with a storyline concerned with the death of print media in more recent years.
Although Disney declined to comment, EW reports that most of the original cast, director, and producers are discussing a reunion. Which is quite possibly the best news, since no one else can play Miranda Priestly and Andy Sachs but Streep and Hathaway.
In past years, multiple members of the cast have mulled over the idea of a sequel..but struggled to imagine a world where The Devil Wears Prada can exist side-by-side rapidly vanishing world of printed fashion magazines.
However, there’s a plethora of possibilities in the fashion journalism community– simply take a few notes from Vogue!
In 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada,Meryl Streep’s terrifying editor in chief dismisses her two devoted assistants—played by Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt—with a chilly “That’s all.” But earlier this week, Puck reported that there may actually be more Devil Wears Prada on the horizon: a sequel is in early development at Disney. Sources also confirmed the news to Deadline, although reps for the studio had no official comment.
Based on Lauren Weisberger’s bestselling book, which fictionalized her time as assistant to Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour, the film follows the immersion of Hathaway’s Andy Sachs into the world of high-fashion publishing. Andy is enthralled by Streep’s powerful Miranda Priestly, but breaks free of her by film’s end. The character does, however, cross paths with her former boss in two follow-up novels by Weisberger.
Upon release, the original film grossed over $326 million worldwide, earned two Oscar nominations, and spawned a stage musical featuring Vanessa Williams as Miranda Priestly that is currently running on London’s West End. As such, it’s no surprise that studios have sought a sequel. But in her recent Vanity Fair cover story, Hathaway downplayed the idea of a follow-up, mostly because she “prefers her movies to be true escapes from everyday details like texting,” as Julie Miller wrote. “I’m just realizing this as I talk to you,” Hathaway told Miller. “I haven’t turned to my team and said, ‘Only send me movies that predate the personal computer revolution.’”
Here’s everything we know about the reported The Devil Wears Prada sequel, including which cast members might be venturing into the expansive Runway fashion closet.
Is The Devil Wears Prada 2 officially happening?
There has been no official announcement from the studio yet. But according to Puck, the sequel would center on the challenges facing print media in the 21st century—one of the very reasons Hathaway has expressed reservations about the project.
Here’s what she said about the idea on The View in 2022: “I just think that movie was in a different era. Everything has gone so digital, and that movie centered around the concept of producing a physical thing.” Even so, Hathaway agreed that it’s “tempting to think about Andy and Emily [Blunt’s character] needing to get Miranda her coffee, and she’s somewhere in Europe, and then along the way they pick up Stanley Tucci in Italy.”
Who will be in The Devil Wears Prada sequel?
According to Entertainment Weekly’s production source, Streep, Hathaway, Blunt, and Tucci—who played Runway’s ultra-loyal art director Nigel—are all in talks to reprise their roles for the film. (No word on Adrien Grenier’s Nate and his oh-so-precious grilled cheese sandwiches.) The same goes for the movie’s original director David Frankel, screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna, and producer Wendy Finerman. Disney declined a request for comment from the publication, which has also reached out to reps for the aforementioned talent.
But Hathaway isn’t the only cast member who previously expressed doubts about returning to the world of Runway. In February, shortly before reuniting with Hathaway and Streep on the SAG Awards stage, Blunt dismissed the idea of a Devil Wears Prada sequel on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. Sharing that their had “never” been plans for a follow-up. She added, “Sometimes things should be cherished and preserved in this bubble, and it’s okay.”
What Is The Devil Wears Prada sequel about?
Here’s the basic idea, according to Puck: “The storyline being discussed focuses on Miranda Priestly, Streep’s Wintour-esque protagonist, at the end of her career, facing the decline of traditional magazine publishing. She’s forced to go head-to-head with her former assistant, Blunt’s Emily Charlton, now a high-powered executive at a Kering or LVMH-style luxury group, whose advertising dollars Priestly desperately needs.”
When is The Devil Wears Prada sequel coming out?
At this point, getting hands on any version of the sequel’s screenplay would be harder than securing the unpublished Harry Potter manuscript Miranda’s twins covet in the original film. By all means, viewers hope that the creative team moves at a glacial place—they know how that thrills us.
Gird your loins! A sequel to the absolute classic The Devil Wears Prada is reportedly in development at Disney, and will follow the lives and careers of two of the movie’s most memorable characters.
Reports say that both Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep are involved – however neither the actors nor Disney have commented on or confirmed this. The Devil Wears Prada producer Wendy Finerman allegedly convinced the two stars to sign on to the sequel.
According to Variety, the movie reportedly “follows Priestly as she navigates her career amid the decline of traditional magazine publishing and faces off against Blunt’s character, now a high-powered executive for a luxury group with advertising dollars that Priestly desperately needs”.
The original movie’s screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna is also reportedly in talks to write the sequel. We’ll be waiting for confirmation that Meryl and Emily are on board – just recently, Emily opened up to Anne Hathaway about the ways that The Devil Wears Prada changed her life.
“We just had a joy bomb of a time on that movie,” Blunt told Hathaway during a conversation for Variety’s Actors on Actors series. “I don’t know if any of us knew it was going to become what it did. It’s quoted to me every week. It will be the movie that changed my life.”
But one thing also needs to be addressed: Anne Hathaway‘s absence from the reports thus far. Seeing as she played Andy, the protagonist of the original film, surely a sequel can’t happen without her?
When Anne’s been asked about it in the past, she’s admittedly not been positive – she told Entertainment Tonight last year: “there’s not going to be a sequel. It’s not gonna happen. We can’t do it.”
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Anne Hathaway is no stranger to gracing the red carpet in Valentino, Versace, and countless other high-end fashion labels — until recently. On Monday, May 20, the 41-year-old actress flipped the fashion script wearing a chic white cotton dress from none other than the American heritage brand Gap. The number exuded such luxury that when fans such as ourselves saw the fashion credit attributed to Gap, they did a double take. Countless websites raced to run the story in headlines, reporting that the deconstructed spring dress was custom-made for “The Idea of You” star by the brand’s creative director Zac Posen. But now, as it turns out, the dress isn’t so exclusive to the actress. As of today, fashion lovers everywhere can preorder the dress on gap.com — that is, if you act fast enough.
“Designing this custom white shirtdress was an exciting opportunity to reimagine Gap’s classic white shirt,” Posen said in a statement to the press. “By incorporating elements like the shirt’s collar and placket and adding feminine touches with darting at the waist, we created a modern look that pays homage to the elegance of Audrey Hepburn in ‘Roman Holiday.’” (How’s that for a throwback?) On the red carpet, celebrity fashion stylist Erin Walsh teamed the dress with a white corset and matching shorts, complementing the look with white Christian Louboutin pumps and statement-making Bulgari jewels. Whether you take a similar approach for an elevated affair or dress it down with sandals or stylish sneakers, there’s no denying the dress is one to covet for summer.
Gap has not only made headlines for Hathaway’s dress recently, but also for its recent collaboration with the LA-based label Dôen. The line, available now, boasts essentials reimagined through Dôen’s feminine lens. As we eagerly wait to see what else Gap has up its sleeve, you can preorder Hathaway’s exact Gap shirtdress ahead, and, in the likely case that it sells out, we’ve also included a curation of equally chic alternatives.
It’s time for one of the most glamorous events of the year—the Cannes Film Festival. Every May, filmmakers, producers, directors, actors and other A-listers make their way to the French Riviera for 12 days of movie screenings, parties and, of course, plenty of glitzy red carpets and exciting fashion moments on La Croisette.
The 2024 Cannes Film Festival runs from May 14 to May 25, and we’re keeping you updated on all the best red carpet moments throughout the entire spectacle. Below, see the best-dressed looks from the Cannes Film Festival red carpet.
For those who didn’t think (or believe it possible) that there was such a thing as a “Coachella rom-com,” The Idea of You is here to fill this apparent void. And, although the book of the same name it’s adapted from, written by Robinne Lee and released in 2017, doesn’t involve Coachella, but rather, a concert at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, the same general premise of the “meet-cute” in question is still there. Though, for whatever reason, co-writers Michael Showalter (who also directed) and Jennifer Westfeldt (known for Kissing Jessica Stein and being Jon Hamm’s ex) thought it would be better to make that happen within the context of Coachella, an increasingly vexatious, overpriced music festival that, once upon a time, a woman like Solène Marchand (Anne Hathaway) never would have felt comfortable attending, let alone as a chaperone to her daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin), and her friends, Zeke (Jordan Aaron Hall) and Georgia (Mathilda Gianopoulos). After all, “VIP culture” at the festival wasn’t a thing until at least after Madonna performed in April of 2006 (as many stickers at the time touted, “Madonna Killed Coachella”). Once that shift occurred, for those with the means, “there [was] no real roughing it at Coachella anymore,” as a 2015 L.A. Times article pointed out. And certainly not for a well-to-do, “middle-aged” white woman.
Fortunately, it’s not as though the entire movie takes place within this presently bourgeois context (such an attempt would make for an even worse storyline). It’s only for about twenty minutes that the first act setup centers on Coachella. An act wherein, initially, Solène resigns herself to a lonely weekend of camping (though, in the book, it’s presented as an artist’s retreat in Ojai). Alas, as her ex-husband, Daniel (Reid Scott), is known for doing, he completely ruins her plans (just as he did when he divorced her for a younger woman named Eva [Perry Mattfeld]) by showing up to her house with Izzy and co.—after she already dropped them off at his—and asking if she can drive them there instead now that he’s had an Important Work Thing come up. So, he pleads, why not relish the VIP tickets he shelled out for him and their daughter? Along with the meet-and-greet package he bought for Izzy so that she could interact with boy band August Moon. A band she hasn’t been into since junior high, but such is the out-of-touchness of her father in terms of paying close attention to the ways in which she’s growing up at a rapid pace. As most teenagers do (especially now). Which brings up one of numerous key differences in the book: Izzy/Isabelle actually is still very much an August Moon fangirl. With regard to this detail, it helps that, in the book, she’s twelve…as opposed to being seventeen in the movie. Isabelle’s age in Robinne Lee’s version of the story also raises the stakes much higher in terms of Solène feeling responsible for her child’s emotional well-being. Because by the time kids are in their late teens, that ship has sailed.
Indeed, one of the many heavy-handed expositions that Showalter and Westfeldt emphasize in their screenplay adaptation is how much more involved and caring Solène is as a parent than Daniel. Even though she, too, has her own successful career to juggle: running a gallery in Silverlake. A noticeable neighborhood shift from the book’s setting of Culver City. But Silverlake is just so much “hipper” for the purposes of the camera…even if the majority of shooting took place in Georgia (namely, Atlanta and Savannah). This is perhaps a more overt way in which The Idea of You as a film reveals just how much it skimps on things. Including making an actual statement about the way older women are treated when they date younger men in comparison to the inverse of that: older men with younger women. Sure, there are some errant, overwrought lines delivered—like Izzy telling Solène, “The people on the internet that are picking you apart are disgusting. It’s ‘cause you’re a woman and it’s ‘cause you’re older than him [thanks for spelling it out]”—but, by and large, the message about double standards gets lost in this becoming a movie about catering to a forty-something female fantasy. The idea, not of “you,” but of still being appealing to much younger man.
Among the generation about to enter Anne Hathaway’s age bracket, this is more of a concern than it ever was in the past (likely as a result of fewer women settling for “fading into the background” once they’ve reached “a certain age”). And also, perhaps, more of a moot point. Mainly because, if you have the money, it’s never been easier to appear younger than you truly are, with Samantha Jones’ prophecy of “mani/pedi/Botox” being totally normalized at this point. Then there is the recent “joke” (read: accurate assessment) about how millennials are looking younger than run-ragged, “overstressed” (a.k.a. overstimulated, visually) Gen Z. With millennials actually favoring a younger-looking style (see: Lana Del Rey’s coquette aesthetic or Paris Hilton’s puerile butterfly wings) as Gen Z actively ages their skin with hyper-use of glycolic acid-packed skin products that will sooner (rather than later) have the reverse effect on their complexion that these face washes and exfoliants are meant to have on non-teen skin.
Solène, being born to French parents (though grandparents in the movie), clearly has to worry less about skin issues with such heritage. And it’s obviously benefited her in terms of coming across as Izzy’s “big sister” rather than her mother. That, and she had her daughter at a relatively young age (a much younger one in the movie)…sort of like Lorelei Gilmore.
Allowing herself to be swept away by Hayes’ British charm and wit (a decided false stereotype when it comes to British men), things escalate quite quickly, even though, in the current era, audiences might be hard-pressed to believe that a white boy band would have this much cachet. Because, if we’re being honest, the moment for white boy bands passed a while ago—at the latest, with One Direction (though, in truth, the heyday ended after Backstreet Boys and NSYNC). Even so, readers and viewers alike are meant to suspend their disbelief in terms of surrendering to the idea that it wouldn’t be a more BTS-inspired boy band that Izzy was obsessed with. Perhaps, undercuttingly, it speaks to a certain kind of racism in not wanting a white woman (or girl) to go for an Asian man. That would add an additional layer of “complexity” to the age gap element that audiences might just not be ready for.
The book itself does a better job of giving more dimension to the boy band, at least bestowing the fandom with a name…as all fandoms are now required to have in real life. In this case: “Augies.” Or “Augie Moms.” Solène doesn’t see herself that way at all, though fears she’ll be automatically pegged as one just because she got roped into the meet-and-greet. And yet, in the book, being able to observe Izzy’s excitement is both delightful and bittersweet, the latter sentiment addressed when she notes, “…it pained me to realize that Isabelle was now part of this tribe. This motley crew searching for happiness in five boys from Britain whom they did not know, could never know and who would never return the adulation.” That last part speaking to the intensity of parasocial relationships that has amplified in the twenty-first century with social media.
In the years when Solène would have been a teenager, the magnitude of that parasocial dynamic didn’t seem as strong. Not when it was all about posters on the wall as opposed to 24/7 internet stalking. To that end, there’s a moment in the book where Solène mentions having attended New Kids on the Block’s Magic Summer Tour (which went on from 1990 to 1992) and how, even then, she couldn’t fully let herself give in to the “thrall” that boy bands cause among tweens and teens.
Maybe that’s why she can’t resist giving way to it in the present, agreeing to go to lunch with Hayes in the book after he does a less stalker-y move by calling her gallery instead of just showing up like he does in the movie. As a matter of fact, the stalking aspect so often normalized in more “retro” rom-coms (e.g., Say Anything, 10 Things I Hate About You, Love Actually, etc.) is alive and well in The Idea of You, with audiences apparently expected to ignore it because of how “hot” and “charismatic” Hayes is. Besides, he’s a “star.” He’s used to simply going after what he wants and getting it. Applying that same ambition to a decidedly averse Solène. Averse not because she doesn’t want to tap that, but because she’s older, more pragmatic and should “know better.” She’s not driven by the same carnal lust as someone as hormone-driven as Hayes, who is twenty-four in the movie, but twenty in the book (maybe the writers thought those extra four years added onto his life would make it less scandalous). In both versions of The Idea of You, Solène is about to be forty. It’s mentioned so many times (complete with a birthday cake that reads: “Lordy Lordy Look Who’s 40”), it would be hard to forget.
And yet, as The Idea of You would have people believe, it seems that one needs to be a forty-year-old American woman in order to be on the same intellectual level as a twenty-four-year-old British man. Accordingly, the repartee between Hayes and Solène is meant to be the foreplay neither can resist consummating. At the lunch they have in the book, Solène ribs, “Something in the water in Notting Hill?” It’s a lunch during which they actually go out to eat as opposed to Solène taking Hayes back to her house. The mention of this London neighborhood brings up the automatic thought of 1999’s Notting Hill, amongst the few other movies in the rom-com genre to explore a romance through a lens in which one of the people in the relationship is world-famous (unfortunately, Marry Metried to rip off this concept with much less success). Specifically, an actress named Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) who ends up in her own unlikely tryst with a “normal” named William Thacker (Hugh Grant).
Another rarity in the genre, 2007’s Music and Lyrics, has Grant playing the famous—or erstwhile famous—one: Alex Fletcher, a former member of 80s boy band Pop! (an amalgam of Wham! and Duran Duran). He eventually falls for “normal” Sophie Fisher (Drew Barrymore), the woman tasked with watering his plants who he suddenly discovers is a brilliant lyricist. It might say something that there’s always a Brit involved in these types of relationships. Or that Hugh Grant is in both films in roles reversed. And yes, like Hayes, Alex is terrified that he’s just a joke, and that no one will ever see him as being capable of writing music that is anything beyond froth. Both Solène and Sophie assure each of their respective men that it isn’t true. Though neither man seems as keen to reciprocate much in the way of similar support.
For Solène, that’s particularly important, what with the ramped-up scrutiny she gets as a result of being much older than Hayes (though their age difference is pretty standard between many older men and younger women). Regardless, it’s evident that, despite all the obstacles—even when it comes to her daughter being mocked and harassed, too—Solène and Hayes will end up together. That’s the point of movies like this: to be reassured that, against all odds (even the highly specific odds stacked against an older, non-famous woman dating a young, very famous man), love will triumph. It’s what the likes of OG star-falls-for-normal movie Notting Hill taught us long ago. And yes, there are two ostensible nods to that movie in terms of the mise-en-scène that harkens back to Anna coming into the bookshop and delivering her famous line: “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” The first is when Solène goes to the studio where Hayes is recording a song (inspired by her, duh) and asks if he’ll give her another chance, and the second is a the very end, when Hayes comes into her gallery after they agree to take a five-year break and see if they’re still “hooked” on each other once all the scrutiny has died down and Izzy has gotten old enough to not be in school anymore. Needles to say, they are.
Along the way to this inevitable moment, however, the rockiness of their obstacle-laden romance doesn’t come across as all that high-stakes the way it does in the book. Even so, while the movie might not top Notting Hill or Music and Lyrics (though, for some bizarre reason, the latter has a lower approval rating than this Hathaway movie), The Idea of You can at least take comfort in being a notch above Marry Me.
It’s been a fun and flirty few weeks for film releases. Last year’s surprise summer romance Anything But You finally came to streaming and is sitting pretty on Netflix’s Top 10. Zendaya and Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers is all sweat, sex, scorn, and some truly fine tennis — no wonder it’s the number-one movie at the box office.
And now, the long-awaited Amazon Prime Video drama The Idea of You is finally-finally out…and the internet can’t get enough.
After months of promo — and a viral trailer that garnered over 125 million global views across all social media platforms, breaking the record for the most watched trailer for any original streaming movie — Anne Hathaway’s turn as a single mother who falls in love with the most famous popstar on the planet is. Finally. Here.
Any clip of the film reveal what’s at its core: sizzling chemistry, Hathaway’s unfailing charm, and a sudden tenderness that reveals that The Idea of You is not just one more spicy mommy movie (sorry, Fifty Shades of Grey). It’s a character study of Solène, Hathaway’s character, who turns 40 and is a woman in search of herself. Where does she find herself? In the arms of a 20-something-year-old rockstar based loosely on Harry Styles.
Is The Idea of You based on a true story?
Directed by Michael Showalter, The Idea of You is based on Robinne Lee’s best-selling novel of the same name. The book’s now cult-like devotees slowly but surely gained momentum. The novel found a feral fanbase during those cold and lonely months of the early pandemic when everyone had the “Watermelon Sugar” music video on repeat simply to recall what outside air and human touch felt like.
But the book initially published way back in 2017 — doesn’t that feel like the Paleolithic Era? — just about a month to the day after Harry Styles released his debut album. This is significant because, in the years that followed, the book seems to predict certain events and themes in the popstar’s relationships — specifically his headline-grabbing love affair with Olivia Wilde.
The pretty much predictive elements of the book are proof of why Lee’s novel is so compelling. It’s not just about the fantasy. And it’s not, she insists, a fan-fiction — though she has admitted it’s based on Harry Styles as well as Prince Harry and Eddie Redmayne … interesting mix. It’s about love. It’s about women. And it’s about coming of age or coming into your sexuality, at a time when society has put you on the shelf.
Is The Idea of You good?
The Idea of You is bringing back the rom-com. Watching the film, I couldn’t help but say aloud: “we’re so back.” From a classic awkward-but-charming meet-cute to the sexy montages of relationship bliss set to upbeat music, The Idea of You does everything you want a rom-com to do. And because it’s been so long since we’ve seen a high-budget romantic comedy of this caliber — with Anne Hathaway no less! — it doesn’t feel trite, it feels refreshing. Invigorating. Addictive.
This is due in no small part to the stunningly sensual performances by Hathaway and her leading man, Nicholas Galitzine ( Bottoms and Red, White, and Royal Blue), who plays Hayes Campbell. Hathaway raves about her co-star’s ability to create chemistry with anyone. So, paired with an Oscar-winning actress, of course, the sparks were flying.
If you didn’t believe in the characters’ chemistry, the film would fall apart. The tension between them must be strong enough to withstand a world tour, societal judgments, and Sol’s own self-doubts. And this pair delivers. As you watch, you’ll fall in love with Galitzine, too. In interviews, he’s got the same quintessential British charm of a young Hugh Grant. On-screen, he’s every bit the magnetic rockstar that easily packs a stadium full of girls hoping to catch his eye and his heart.
For her part, Hathaway plays the somewhat farfetched role with grounded authenticity. She’s not the typical someone who gets swept away by this young rockstar. She’s a complex character who allows herself to take a risk. To meet her complexity, Galitzine has to imbue his own character with far more than rock’n’roll, fake tattoos, and that one little earring. He crafts exactly the kind of dream boy you hope is underneath your fave heartthrobs. Sensitive and boyish, but full of depth, Galitzine’s Hayes Campbell plays perfectly against Hathaway’s Solene — literally.
I get what Anything But You is trying to say — but did it get there?
For what it is, this film is spectacular. Give it a Teen Choice Award, a People’s Choice Award, and a VMA for the promotional August Moon visuals. It’s certified Fresh with a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. For too long, the genre’s been handed paltry budgets for trite storylines and left in the dust. But after years of being underinvested in and undervalued by the gatekeepers of cinema, The Idea of You proves why we should bet on character-driven movies about women.
Though we still adore many of those heroines from the rom-com heyday — that includes Anne Hathaway as Andy in The Devil Wears Prada or The Princess Diaries — there’s one notable difference between this story and the films of yore. Our protagonists’s age.
Despite Hathaway’s youthful appearance, Solène isn’t just some ingenue. She’s not a 20-year-old trying to make it in the big city. She’s not a naive Manic Pixie Dream Girl from a small town whose purpose is to introduce all the beauty in the world to a jaded man. And she’s certainly not a corporate Girlboss who just needs a man to show her there’s more to life. No, Solène’s a divorced mother and gallerist who is on her journey to self-discovery.
We meet her as she’s embarking on a camping trip in an attempt to find herself in nature. But when that camping trip morphs into a chaperoning expedition to Coachella, Solène is thrust into the giddy world of being a rockstar girlfriend for a man more than 15 years her junior.
Anne Hathaway says this age dynamic is part of why she wanted to take on this role. Some skeptics have asked why Hathaway is already being relegated to mom roles or why she took on a fluffy film, the hidden complexity is what drew her to it.
“For some reason, we talk about coming-of-age stories as being something that happens to you in the earliest part of your life, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like I keep blooming,” Hathaway said at the film’s SXSW premiere.
Indeed, the film focuses on Sol’s age from many different angles. There are the establishing shots of Sol forced to make lackluster conversation with men her age at her birthday party. There’s her toxic dynamic with her ex-husband and the sense that she’s trying to emerge whole from the shell of a bad marriage. There’s of course, the contrast between her teenage daughter (Ella Rudin) insisting she’s too old for the group August Moon while Sol herself has a steamy affair with its lead singer. But most of the focus on her age is external.
The Idea of You tackles society’s expectations and constraints of middle-aged women. It parrots back outdated attitudes slamdunk debunks them — by showing you that Sol is still sexy, thank you very much.
While looking like Anne Hathaway and being attractive to a 24-year-old shouldn’t be the metrics for one’s worth, they don’t hurt. But in Sol’s case, we don’t see much of her personal development beyond this brief tryst. What we do see, is the people in her life grappling with the external pressures thrust upon them by hyperbolic headlines and social media abuse.
“It’s because you’re a woman,” Rudin’s character plainly states. Yet, the film doesn’t get more nuanced than that. But does it have to? After all, we’ve seen this familiar trope play out in real life. Namely, with Olivia Wilde during the Don’t Worry Darling press tour firestorm. And I worry any further extrapolation would have resulted in a Barbie-type monologue.
At its core, The Idea of You is a step above fan-fiction but it achieves what the best fan-fics do: validate your fantasies. It says, hey [your name], you, too, deserve love. Love in this case is the attention of a Coachella performer (Sabrina Carpenter, call me), but it’s also the belief that you’re worthy of that attention. And watching that sort of lavish affection bestowed on a woman over 25 on screen is refreshing and thrilling.
Even more, it’s proof that the female gaze is ruling cinema and it’s here to stay.
How to watch The Idea of You
The Idea of You is streaming on Amazon Prime Video starting May 2nd.
Like all rom-coms, this movie is just as good if you watch it alone in your room, giggling and kicking your feet as if you’re watching it sleepover-style with all your besties. It’s also screening at a select number of theaters. So, check your local showtimes for tickets, take your blankets to the cinema, and giggle and gasp along with the crowd as you all fall in love with Nicholas Galitzine together.
The Intern actress Anne Hathaway is known for her iconic roles in Hollywood and theatre. She has opened up about a post that she put out in 2019 via Instagram, where the One Day star was going to welcome her second baby. However, there are things that happened prior to having her second baby. As the actress prepared for The Idea of You in 2024, what was the incident about? Find out.
Did Anne Hathaway open up about her miscarriage of 2015?
The 2019 Instagram post of Anne was captioned, “It’s not for a movie…. All kidding aside, for everyone going through infertility and conception hell, please know it was not a straight line to either of my pregnancies. Sending you extra love.” When the Princess Diaries star was asked about the same in an interview, she said, “Given the pain I felt while trying to get pregnant, it would’ve felt disingenuous to post something all the way happy when I know the story is much more nuanced than that for everyone.”
Hathaway then opened up about her tragic miscarriage that happened in 2015. It happened during her stint with Grounded, a one woman off Broadway play that went on for six weeks. While Hathaway was devastated, no one knew about the miscarriage. Even her close friends found the truth only after they visited her backstage. The Devil Wears Prada actress said, “The first time it didn’t work out for me. I was doing a play and I had to give birth onstage every night,” and added, “It was too much to keep it in when I was onstage pretending everything was fine.” She even adds how family support becomes crucial. Regarding that Anne says, “I had to keep it real otherwise…So when it did go well for me, having been on the other side of it — where you have to have the grace to be happy for someone — I wanted to let my sisters know, ‘You don’t have to always be graceful. I see you and I’m with you.’” Anne also feels it gets difficult to want something so badly and feels as if it’s going overboard to want so much.
What does Anne Hathaway say about her family?
The Interstellar actress has two sons-Jack and Jonathan with her husband Adam Shulman. While Jonathan is 8, Jack is just 4. In an interview with NET A PORTER, the actress revealed how she likes to keep her professional and family life separate to allow her health to prosper. The mom in her continued, “My family has needs, and one of the needs of children is that they need to be able to define their own lives,” and added “It doesn’t even occur to me to link the two up, except through gratitude that they serve each other so beautifully. But they serve each other through me, and not through a space that’s outside of myself.” As we wait to see how Anne Hathaway’s latest The Idea of You turns out to be, stay tuned to Pinkvilla for more updates.
All the cool film girlies just came back from Berlin. Specifically, they are fresh from the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, and they still smell like cigarettes to prove it. Between anecdotes about how Berghain is ruined, they’re telling me how they watched Cillian Murphy (my father, emotionally) give another masterful, award-worthy performance in the Enda Walsh adaptation of Claire Keegan’s novel Small Things Like These. This is apropos of nothing, except that I was not in Berlin, so I will have to wait alongside everyone else to see one of my favorite books on screen later this year.
But how can I be bitter? This week, half of Los Angeles will flock to Texas for South By Southwest in Austin, and I’ll be delightfully distracted by a whole new slate of upcoming releases premiering at this year’s festival. There are so many new films to be excited about premiering at the festival — even without Cillian Murphy’s cheekbones.
Let’s get into it.
What is SXSW?
I’m in for a week of acronyms: SXSW in ATX FTW – LFG!! South By Southwest (aka SXSW or SX or South By) is a film festival, music festival, and industry conference all rolled into one. Fueled by Texas BBQ and Torchy’s Tacos, creative people in the tech, film, music, education, and culture industries swarm from theater to concert hall and conference room networking (allegedly), writing pretentious reviews about the future of culture (guilty), and being menaces to the residents of Austin by causing even worse traffic jams than the city is used to— and I can’t wait.
When is SXSW 2024?
SXSW 2024 will be held from March 8 – 16 2024. Highly anticipated events include Rolling Stone’s Future of Music Series (my artists to watch are Flo Milli and Faye Webster), and the SXSW Music Festival (which, this year, includes The Black Keys, Bootsy Collins, and many more). Of course, the highlight is the insane 2024 SXSW movie lineup. I can’t wait to laugh, cry, and contemplate my very existence while staring up at a screen at SXSW. In the words of Nicole Kidman, “We come to this place to dream.” And this week, the dreamers are all in Austin, Texas.
Here are the films at SXSW 2024 we’re most excited about – starring an assortment of all our favorite actors (even though Cilian won’t be making an appearance). Still, we’re excited to see new performances from faves like Ayo Edebiri, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Gosling, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Jonathan Groff, Hunter Schafer, Rachel Zegler, Anne Hathaway, Nicholas Galitzine, and a whole lot more.
SXSW 2024 Official Opening Night Selection
Road House
This is not Patrick Swayze’s Road House (1989) — but by the time Jake Gyllenhaal is done with you, you’ll love it as much as the original. Gyllenhaal stars as an ex-UFC fighter-turned-bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse, owned by Frankie (Jessica Williams). Facing threats from a criminal gang led by Brandt (Billy Magnussen), Dalton’s violent past emerges. When he is confronted by Knox (Conor McGregor), a lethal gun-for-hire, the escalating brawls and bloodshed become more dangerous than his days in the Octagon. Fans of real-life, ex-UFC fighter Conor McGregor are excited to see him in this film, even if he is the villain. Road House is coming to Prime Video on March 21st.
SXSW 2024 Official Closing Night Selection
The Idea of You
This film is like if your mom stole your Wattpad moment. Created by two-time SXSW Audience Award Winner Michael Showalter, it’s his great return to SXSW and it’s sure to be a riot. Allegedly based on Harry Styles (and a little bit of Prince Harry, too), The Idea of You is the salacious story of a 40-year-old single mom who begins an unexpected romance with her daughter’s favorite popstar. She goes from begrudgingly chaperoning her daughter to Coachella to meeting, and falling for, 24-year-old Hayes Campbell, the lead singer of a band based on One Direction. This odd couple romance promises to be more than meets the eye. The couple is played by Red White & Royal Blue’s Nicholas Galitzine alongside Anne Hathaway so I am ready and willing to go on this ride. I’m expecting something that feels like a mix of After, A Star is Born, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Watch the trailer HERE. And listen to the first song from the Original Soundtrack by fictional boy band August Moon HERE.
Other films to watch at SXSW 2024
I Wish You All The Best
I am unspeakably excited for Tommy Dorfman’s queer coming-of-age drama. Written and directed by Dorfman and starring Corey Fogelmanis, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Alexandra Daddario, Cole Sprouse, Lena Dunham, Amy Landecker, Lexi Underwood, and more (wow!) it’s an adaptation of Mason Deaver’s novel of the same name. A queer tale of chosen family, it follows Ben DeBacker, a non-binary teen who is thrown out of their house and forced to move in with their estranged older sister, Hannah, and her husband, Thomas. Struggling with anxiety, they come out only to Hannah, Thomas, and their art teacher, Ms. Lyons, while trying to keep a low profile at their new school. Ben’s attempts to survive junior year unnoticed are thwarted when Nathan, a funny and charismatic student, decides to take Ben under his wing. With the help of Nathan, and his friends Sophie and Mel, Ben discovers themselves, and what started as a disastrous turn of events looks like it might just be a chance to start a happier new life.
A Nice Indian Boy
A Nice Indian Boy
I’ll watch Jonathan Groff in anything — and this original odd-couple comedic drama would have taken me no convincing anyway. Self-effacing doctor Naveen Gavaskar meets Jay Kurundkar, a white man adopted by two Indian parents, when Jay takes his picture at the hospital. Despite initial skepticism on Naveen’s part, the two quickly fall in love. Naveen avoids telling his traditional family—parents Megha & Archit and sister Arundhathi—who accepted his sexuality years earlier and are close to him but increasingly don’t know much about his life. Eventually, inevitably, Jay, with no family of his own, has to meet the Gavaskars, who have never met a boyfriend of Naveen’s.
The Fall Guy
The Fall Guy
Don’t fret, Barbie fever is over, but Ryan Gosling will be back on your screens soon enough with this comedic action blockbuster. Ryan Gosling stars as Colt, a stuntman who, after a near-career-ending accident, is drafted back into service when the star of a mega-budget movie—being directed by his ex, Jody (Emily Blunt)—goes missing. Now, this working-class hero has to solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. Certified heartthrob Aaron Taylor Johnson is also in this — giving me something to look forward to as I wait patiently for his role in Kraven: The Hunter later this year. I’m sat.
Omni Loop
Omni Loop
The more Ayo Edebiri in the zeitgeist, the better. Alongside Mary Louise Parker, Steven Maier, Eddie Cahill, and more, she stars in this existential sci-fi feature. Zoya Lowe, a 55 year old woman from Miami, FL, has been diagnosed with a black hole inside her chest and given a week to live. But what the doctors and her family don’t know is that she has already lived this week before. She’s lived it so many times, in fact, that she doesn’t even know how long it’s been. Until one day she meets Paula, a young woman studying time at a lab in the local university, and together they decide to try and solve time travel so Zoya can actually go back— back into her past, back to a time before she settled, back to when her whole future was still wide open in front of her—back so she can do it all over again, and finally be the person she always wanted to be. It’s this year’s Everything Everywhere All At Once so I have high hopes.
The Greatest Hits
The Greatest Hits
Harriet (Lucy Boynton) finds art imitating life when she discovers certain songs can transport her back in time – literally. While she relives the past through romantic memories of her former boyfriend (David Corenswet), her time-traveling collides with a burgeoning new love interest in the present (Justin H. Min). As she takes her journey through the hypnotic connection between music and memory, she wonders if she can change the past. Think Yesterday, but … no, pretty much just exactly Yesterday.
Y2K
Y2K A24 Movie
The children are our future! This A24 disaster comedy, Y2K, stars Rachel Zegler, Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, Lachlan Watson, Daniel Zolghadri, Mason Gooding, The Kid Laroi (yes, from that Justin Bieber song), and more as high schoolers who crash a NYE party in 1999 and end up fighting for their lives. But doesn’t all high school feel like that?
I Love You Forever
I Love You Forever
Directed and written by Cazzie David and Elisa Kalani and starring Sofia Black-D’Elia, Ray Nicholson, Jon Rudnitsky, Cazzie David, and Raymond Cham Jr, this film portrays the sad reality of the dating landscape. It follows Mackenzie, a disillusioned 25-year old law student tired of the apps — because who isn’t. When she has a “real life meet-cute” with a charming journalist who makes her believe true love may actually exist. Ultimately, it starts to go left and Mackenzie finds herself trapped in a tumultuous and depleting cycle of emotional abuse.
Doin It
Doin It
Starring internet sensation-turned-host-turned-actor Lilly Singh, Doin It is a comedy of errors about an Indian woman trying to lose her virginity. Fans of Never Have I Ever, which also starts with that premise, should flock to this film. After teenage Maya is caught in a sexually compromising position, her mom moves the family back to India so Maya can learn proper discipline. Years later, she returns to the US to find funding for her teen-focused app, and gets a job as a substitute high school teacher so she can research her target demo. But when the principal assigns her to teach sex ed, Maya —who’s still a virgin— sets out on a quest with her best friend to make up for the high school experience she lost out on. It also stars Ana Gasteyer, Sabrina Jalees, Stephanie Beatriz, Mary Holland, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Sonia Dhillon Tully.
Civil War
Civil War
No, not the Marvel film. Much more chilling and dystopian — especially since it’s set in a plausible, near-future. It stars Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, and Nick Offerman taking us on an adrenaline-fueled thrill ride through a fractured America balanced on the razor’s edge, going through a civil war.
Birdeater
Birdeater
A bride-to-be is invited to join her own fiancé’s bachelor party on a remote property in the Australian outback. But as the festivities spiral into beer-soaked chaos, uncomfortable details about their relationship are exposed, and the celebration soon becomes a feral nightmare. I’m imagining part Saltburn and part Get Out from this feature debut.
Babes
Babes
After becoming pregnant from a one-night stand, Eden leans on her married best friend and mother of two, Dawn, to guide her through gestation and beyond. Starring lana Glazer, Michelle Buteau, John Carroll Lynch, and Hasan Minhaj, this comedy about friendship and motherhood is sure to be both belly-busting and heartwarming
Musica
Musica
Based on writer, director and star Rudy Mancuso, Música is a coming-of-age love story that follows an aspiring creator with synesthesia, who must come to terms with an uncertain future, while navigating the pressures of love, family and his Brazilian culture. Alongside Mancuso are Camila Mendes, Francesca Reale, Maria Mancuso, and J.B. Smoove.
Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told
Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told
If anyone else has heard about Freaknik endlessly without hearing about Freaknik, your time has come. This documentary feature is a celebratory exploration of the boisterous times of Freaknik, the iconic Atlanta street party that drew hundreds of thousands of people in the 80s and 90s, helping put Atlanta on the map culturally. At its height, Freaknik was a traffic-stopping, city-shuttering, juggernaut that has since become a cult classic. This documentary will, too.
The Black Sea
The Black Sea
Immersive and inspired by Derrick B. Harden’s travels to Bulgaria, The Black Sea details the transformative journey of a man who finds unexpected connections in a small coastal Eastern European town even as he finds himself to be the only black person around.
Pet Shop Days
Pet Shop Days
I love a very serious thriller with a whimsical title. Starring Jack Irv, Darío Yazeb Bernal, Willem Dafoe, Peter Sarsgaard, and more, you know this one’s going to be good. In an act of desperation, impulsive black sheep Alejandro flees his home in Mexico. On the run from his unforgiving father, Alejandro finds himself in New York City where he meets Jack, a college age pet store employee with similar parental baggage. Together the two enter a whirlwind romance sending them down the rabbit hole of drugs and depravity in Manhattan’s underworld.
Toll
Toll
This Brazilian feature is definitely going to chill me to my core, I’m calling it now. Suellen, a Brazilian toll booth attendant and mother, falls in with a gang of thieves in an attempt to keep her family afloat. In doing so, she realizes she can use her job to raise some extra money illegally for a so-called noble cause: to send her son to an expensive gay conversion workshop led by a renowned foreign priest.
My Dead Friend Zoe
My Dead Friend Zoe
My Dead Friend Zoe follows the journey of Merit, a U.S. Army Afghanistan veteran who is at odds with her family thanks to the presence of Zoe, her dead best friend from the Army. Despite the persistence of her VA group counselor, the tough love of her mother and the levity of an unexpected love interest, Merit’s cozy-dysfunctional friendship with Zoe keeps the duo insulated from the world. That is until Merit’s estranged grandfather—holed up at the family’s ancestral lake house—begins to lose his way and is in need of the one thing he refuses… help. It stars Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Gloria Reuben.
A House Is Not a Disco
A House Is Not a Disco
Directed by Brian J. Smith, this documentary shows a year-in-the-life in the world’s most iconic “homo-normative” community: Fire Island Pines. Situated fifty miles from New York City, this storied queer beach town finds itself in the midst of a renaissance as a new generation of Millennial homeowners reimagine The Pines for a new, more inclusive era. Filmed like a Wiseman movie on magic mushrooms, a large cast of unforgettable eccentrics, activists, drifters, and first-timers reflect on the legacy of The Pines while preparing their beloved village for the biggest challenge it has faced since the AIDS crisis: rising seas caused by climate change.
Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion
Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion
My eighth-grade self, experiencing all the stages of grief in the Brandy Melville changing room, is ready for this expose. It examines how Brandy Melville developed a cult-like following despite its controversial “one size fits all” tagline. Hiding behind its shiny Instagram façade is a shockingly toxic world, a reflection of the global fast fashion industry. Fast fashion isn’t all glitz and glamor – it’s a business that sacrifices humanity and pollutes the planet for the sake of profit.
Growing up a One Direction fan, I am brimming with unnecessary knowledge of four British (and one Irish) men. I have continued to follow Harry Styles throughout his illustrious solo career, and I still watch their This Is Us documentary once a year. And in the world of boybands and sick obsession comes fan fiction.
Yes, I’m no stranger to the classic fanfic lore: your mother sold you to One Direction because she couldn’t pay her bills, or Harry is the emotionally unavailable soccer star at your school and you, dear Y/N, are the nerd assigned to tutor him. And some fanfics were so addictive that they were turned into films — see: the After series by Anna Todd.
But now, we’ve been introduced to a new band in a new film that totally doesn’t ring any familiar bells: August Moon.
Who Is August Moon?
August Moon is the fictional band in the new Amazon Prime movie, The Idea Of You, directed by Michael Showalter and starring Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine. Based on the novel by Robinne Lee, “The Idea Of You” was fashioned after Harry Styles and his rumored love for older women. The internet has already been abuzz comparing Galitzine’s Hayes Campbell to Styles- the patchwork tattoos, the One Direction-inspired photoshoots and mannerisms, and of course the British accent.
24-year-old lead singer Hayes meets 40-year-old Solene (Hathaway) at Coachella (where else?) and sparks fly. If you want to read more about what happens in the trailer, check out our recap here!
Just like Daisy Jones & The Six,August Moon will be releasing their music on streaming platforms across the world. Their first song, “Dance Before We Walk”, was featured in the trailer today.
The song itself isn’t as bad as I anticipated, it’s reminiscent of British synth indie pop made popular by bands like The 1975. Singing alongside Galitzine, there’s Jaiden Anthony, Raymond Cham, Vik White, and Dakota Andan. And it looks like that won’t be the last of August Moon!
The band has also just activated an Instagram account (and it already has over 5k followers), so it truly looks like they’re taking the Daisy Jones approach. The hype surrounding any band mirroring One Direction is huge, and it only amplifies when the lead singer is played by a current Hollywood heartthrob who’s seemingly in everything.
You can listen to “Dance Before We Walk” here:
MORE ABOUT THE IDEA OF YOU
Directed by Michael Showalter
Screenplay by Michael Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt, Based Upon the Book by Robinne Lee
Produced by Cathy Schulman p.g.a., Gabrielle Union p.g.a., Anne Hathaway p.g.a., Robinne Lee, Eric Hayes, Michael Showalter, Jordana Mollick
Executive Produced by Douglas S. Jones, Jason Babiszewski, Jennifer Westfeldt, Kian Gass
Starring Anne Hathaway, Nicholas Galitzine, Ella Rubin, Annie Mumolo, Reid Scott, Perry Mattfeld, Jordan Aaron Hall, Mathilda Gianopoulos, Raymond Cham Jr., Jaiden Anthony, Viktor White, Dakota Adan
Genre Romantic Drama
Based on the acclaimed, contemporary love story of the same name, The Idea of You centers on Solène (Anne Hathaway), a 40-year-old single mom who begins an unexpected romance with 24-year-old Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the lead singer of August Moon, the hottest boy band on the planet. When Solène must step in to chaperone her teenage daughter’s trip to the Coachella Music Festival after her ex bails at the last minute, she has a chance encounter with Hayes and there is an instant, undeniable spark. As they begin a whirlwind romance, it isn’t long before Hayes’ superstar status poses unavoidable challenges to their relationship, and Solène soon discovers that life in the glare of his spotlight might be more than she bargained for.
This film is like if your mom stole your Wattpad moment. The Idea of You follows Solène (Anne Hathaway), a 40-year-old single mom who begins an unexpected romance with her daughter’s favorite pop star. She goes from begrudgingly chaperoning her daughter to Coachella to meeting, to falling for, 24-year-old Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the lead singer of a band, August Moon, based on One Direction.
That’s just where the story begins. The film takes us through their whirlwind romance as Solène wrestles with her unexpected passion for a man almost half her age and the media attention that comes with him. Oh the things we do for boys who play guitar.
I’m expecting something that feels like a mix of After (the original Harry Styles-inspired story), A Star is Born, Fifty Shades of Grey, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. It’s also been compared to Daisy Jones & The Six (by us … we compared it to that). The trailer just dropped and it teases a film that will no doubt be a thrilling ride.
The Idea of You trailer is out now. Watch it here:
The Idea of You – Official Trailer | Prime Videowww.youtube.com
What is The Idea of You based on?
There are many reasons this film has been generating buzz ever since the project was announced. The craziest reason is also the most compelling: it’s kind of about Harry Styles — with a little inspo taken from Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, too. Sounds absolutely bonkers? It is. But it’s more than just fan service — this film promises to stand on its own.
The Idea of You is based on a bestselling novel by Robinne Lee. Before her turn as a bestselling novelist, Robinne Lee was an actress. You might recognize her for her roles Hitch, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. So no surprises that she ended up writing this steamy novel.
Though it was released in 2017, the book became a hit during the pandemic — famous for its surprising and emotionally tumultuous ending. Of course, the source material also got readers hooked. Lee has confirmed in interviews that she was inspired to write the book after stumbling across a One Direction video. Many fan fiction writers have been there, too.
But unlike teens on Wattpad or AO3, Lee’s book is about more than just lust — though there is a lot of that, too. The book is about a woman in her 40s rediscovering her sexuality and feeling desirable. Sure, the story might have gotten its roots when Lee realized that Styles has dated his fair share of older women (and this was before the messiness of the Don’t Worry Darling press tour that deserves its own movie), but it’s really a dramatic tale about how women get overlooked as they age. One that says hey, you’re still just one Coachella ticket away from the hottest relationship of your life — no matter your age.
While the adaptation reimagines the characters and tells the story in the spirit of the novel — so don’t expect a line by line reenactment — fans are hoping the book’s spirit and wrenching ending is realized fully in the new film.
The Idea of You Cast
Alongside Nicholas Galitzine and Anne Hathaway (who is also a producer on the film with Gabrielle Union), The Idea of You stars Ella Rubin, Annie Mumolo, Reid Scott, Perry Mattfeld, Jordan Aaron Hall, Mathilda Gianopoulos, Raymond Cham Jr., Jaiden Anthony, Viktor White, and Dakota Adan.
The Idea of You Soundtrack
While it’s definitely not a musical, this film is based on a boyband and one of the most famous musicians in the world. To give fans the full experience, Nicholas Galitzine gets to show off his singing in the film’s full Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, which will be available in tandem with the film’s release.
Nicholas Galitzine is no stranger to singing on camera. His first major roles in Handsome Devil and The Beat BeneathMy Feet saw him clutching a guitar. He also played the Prince in Amazon’s jukebox musical adaptation of Cinderella alongside Camilla Cabello. Most notably, fans know him for his TikTok covers and guitar playing, making him perfect for this Harry Styles-esque character. Wherever they’re making these charming, singing Brits — take me there.
The film follows the couple through the superstar’s tour with his boyband, August Moon, so of course there’s lots and lots of original music. The first song, “Dance Before We Walk”, was featured in the trailer. Just like Daisy Jones & The Sixand A Star Is Born, this is sure to be a soundtrack to remember. The band has also just activated an Instagram account (and it already has over 5k followers), so you can follow along on Instagram.
The Idea of You is set to have its World Premiere at SXSW Festival on March 16th as the Closing Night Film. After premiering in Austin, you can stream The Idea of You on Prime Video on May 2nd. Calendar: marked.
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