The 10 Best Age-Gap Romance Films to Watch After ‘The Idea of You’

Romance is complicated. The meshing together of two or more people isn’t designed to be a smooth process and art has reflected that for generations, most recently in the new Amazon MGM rom-com “The Idea of You”. In honor of the film dropping on Prime Video, IndieWire has compiled a list of the best age-gap romance films to enjoy after watching Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine’s jaunt within the genre. From the best-selling novel by Robinne Lee, “The Idea of You” follows a 40-year-old gallery owner and divorceé, who, after escorting her daughter to Coachella, ends up in a whirlwind romance with the 24-year-old lead singer of a famous boy band. The book was adapted for the screen by Michael Showalter, as well as Jennifer Westfeldt, who’s dabbled in complicated romances in the past with films like “Kissing Jessica Stein” and “Friends With Kids”. 

In terms of how he approached the age-gap in his film, director Michael Showalter (“The Big Sick”, “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”) told Indiewire, “We wanted the audience to feel good about them, to feel good about their love affair and to root for them. I think if he’s 20 years old and she’s 40, again, it just adds a layer of sort of impropriety or whatever that is great, but just not for this story.”

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No doubt there will be some films on this list that don’t make audiences feel good about romance. That’s okay. That’s the beauty of cinema. We’re allowed to like different things. That’s a central throughline within all the films on this list in fact. What the age-gap film represents to cinema is the breaking of conformity, in ways formal — such as the use of reflection and dolly shots in Douglas Sirk’s melodrama “All That Heaven Allows” — and informal — like the sexuality on display in Alfonso Cuarón’s coming-of-age road movie “Y Tu Mamá También”. However, we do make space on this list for feel-good films as well. At the end of the day, we’re here to endorse love in all of its boundless forms, so sit back, open your mind, and enjoy all that love can be with this list of the best age-gap romance films.

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