The Reaction to Anne Hathaway in The Idea of You is Further Proof No One Knows What a 40-year-old Looks Like Anymore

Anne Hathaway is 41 and is playing a 40-year-old in the new movie, The Idea of You – but according to the masses online, she is “too young” and “too hot” to play a 40-year-old. Confused much? We certainly are.

Two years ago I turned the big Four-O and penned a few pieces about what the heck it feels like to turn 40 in today’s world. But the one that seemed to have resonated the most (judging by all the clicks) was a story I wrote last year titled, ‘I No Longer Have An Idea What a 40-Year-Old is Supposed to Look Like’.

I wrote it, because, well, it suddenly occurred to me that I really had no idea what a woman my age is supposed to look like anymore. I know the faces of my friends so well that something weird has happened where I haven’t seem to noticed that they’ve aged at all in the last few decades. In that story I ended up turning to googling celebrities who were born within a year of me to see what they looked like, to maybe understand a 40-year-old face better, but instead it just confused me even further. I made a little collage of recent pics of all those 40-year-old celebrity women and sent it to some friends, asking them what they thought they all had in common. Not one person guessed that it was their age that united them.

Then, a couple of weeks ago I came down with a sickness from hell and the only silver lining of the experience was that I actually got to spend some time in bed watching TV. But somehow, I ended up going down a strange, at times confronting, age/time warp.

It was a week before I was due to get married so in some sort of fever state I decided to watch a movie I’d watched as a kid, Father of the Bride. Thankfully, despite the fever I didn’t suddenly ditch all our wedding plans and ask for ice sculptures, swans and the entire garden be replanted with tulips in the middle of a snowstorm, like Annie does in the film.

What was sliiiiiiightly alarming though was the sudden dawning on me that Annie, the daughter in the film who is getting married, was apparently 22 (the actress, Kimberly Williams was 19 at the time of filming). Her mother, Diane Keaton was 45 (although Diane was 49 when they filmed the movie). At 42, I was obviously much, much closer to the age of the Mother of the Bride than the Bride in this film, which is obviously going to be quite confronting – even though I know I’m a good decade over the average age of a first-time bride in NZ.

But I still googled the ages of the characters/actors in the film twice, because Diane Keaton – while an absolute beauty – dressed in her sensible shoes, blouses and pearls, looks more like she’s in her 50s or even 60s than what I’m used to seeing reflected back to me in my peer group. Is this really what we thought a 40-something looked like in the 90s?

Switching gears, I next decided to watch a more recent romcom, and turned to The Idea of You. If you’ve somehow missed all the buzz around it, in a nutshell it’s the story of a 40-year-old divorced mother who winds up taking her daughter to Coachella after her father bails on taking her at the last minute. There, she has a chance encounter with the 24-year-old lead singer of a popular boy band (played by 29-year-old Nicholas Galitzine). While she is indifferent to his fame and the hype around him, he is only more intrigued, fixated and head over heels for her, pursuing her until the pair attempt to be in a relationship together.

Yes, the film could be a bit silly at times (some harsh critics wrongly dismissed it as just being ‘fan fiction’ garbage) but there was so much I loved about it: namely, Anne Hathaway’s entire wardrobe, and secondly, getting to watch a 40-year-old woman and mother be treated as the object of desire and the main freaking love interest in the story. Huzzah!

This just simply never happens. We’ve become so horribly accustomed to only seeing 20-something women as being the object of desire in Hollywood. Every now and then, we’ll get a movie like Something’s Gotta Give, where everyone freaks out at the bold decision to make a 56-year-old (as Diane Keaton was at that time) the lead role in a romantic comedy. But, these stories are far and few between. And yes, every now and then we’ll see a 40 something as the lead of a film, but it’s rarely a love story that is the focus of the film. The idea of a 40-year-old as the romantic lead? Pretty much unheard of.

So yes, when I watched this movie I was pretty darn excited to see this portrayal.

What I did think was curious though, was the reactions of the general public to the film – most notably, the sheer volume of people crying out in disbelief/anger/disapproval that Anne Hathaway was cast in this role because she is clearly “too young” or “too hot” to play the part.

I’m sorry, but what?!

It’s here we find ourselves, back at the beginning of my story, where apparently none of us have any idea what a 40-year-old is supposed to look like, because, guys, Anne Hathaway IS 41 years old. She turned 40 while making this film. SHE IS THE SAME AGE AS HER CHARACTER.

Apparently it’s so darn rare that we actually get to see a 40-year-old outside of Hollywood cliché’ boxes we’re used to, that when we see one being more accurately portrayed than just the dowdy old mum in a twinset and pearls, we simply don’t recognise them or believe it.

I read a few message boards (cess pits, yes) where people were very angry or confused that someone in their 40s could look anything like Anne Hathaway. I also read a few reviews which made me see red, which were of a similar vein to the angry masses. One of such, was The Cut’s opinion piece titled: Anne Hathaway Is Too Hot for The Idea of You. The writer said: ‘Why does the 1D-fanfic movie expect me to believe this gorgeous movie star would be convincing as a dowdy, neglected mom?’

But…What? Where did this come from? Why would Anne Hathaway’s character have to be or look dowdy and neglected?! We never got the inkling that this is how this character should look in the film – yes, she’d gone through the break-up of her marriage a few years earlier and was obviously busy juggling work and motherhood, but I certainly didn’t feel that she should therefore be defined as dowdy or neglected. I hadn’t read the book this film is based on though, so I read a few excerpts to see if that’s how she was portrayed in the original story. But now – even in those she’s painted as a busy, chic and well-dressed woman, as you may well imagine a financially well-off woman who runs a classy but cool art gallery in Los Angeles might be. So, is the assumption just that if you’re 40-something and a mum, or a divorced woman that you must look dowdy and neglected?

The writer also says the whole thing is too unrealistic because Anne’s ‘sartorial choices suggest a sophisticate in her early 30s at best’. Why, I hear you ask? Well, because she ‘drifts through her gallery in a shoulder-baring maxi dress that screams Anthropologie model’ of course.

Unfortunately, I seem to have missed the memo that must have meant to have landed in my inbox when I turned 40, because I didn’t realise that now, as an ancient 40-something mother, I mustn’t wear anything that exposes my shoulders, because apparently this in the time in which they become wizened and hideous and must be hidden away from society. It’s a wonder that I wasn’t ejected off a Disney cruise last year when I wore an off-the-shoulder dress with my son to meet Minnie Mouse and burned everyone’s retinas with my weathered and worn, horribly decrepit décolletage. I absolutely hate to think what this writer would have to say about my choice in wedding dress last month.

Now, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say I think I look like Anne Hathaway or an Anthropologie model or anything here (if I was under an illusion I just need to look at my email inbox, which included two emails from PR companies this week offering me some anti-aging treatments to try!), but I also don’t think I look like an dowdy, neglected old lady. Yes, sometimes I wear an oversized sweatshirt, leggings and a messy-bun and probably look like some of the 40-year-olds I’ve seen in other movies, but, this is also the uniform of toddler mums of any age. I still love to dress up and catch up with my friends and when I do, looking around at those friends, I really don’t think that Anne Hathaway in this film looks too dissimilar to my 40-something friends.

My 40-something friends live pretty fabulous lives. I’ve seen them wear backless dresses, chic suits and strapless tops and look fantastic. One even bears her midriff while she talks about her incredible dating life. They have cool jobs! They have children! Some have husbands. Some are dating. Some have a partner 12 years their junior. They have responsibilities! Sometimes they feel and look tired! Sometimes they look a million bucks! Some of them have had Botox. Some have worn sunblock every day of their lives and have nary a wrinkle. Some have done neither and look beautiful!

But, the one thing they all have in common is that they are all fabulous AND forty, and I know the two can go very much hand in hand.

Hopefully, it’s something the rest of the world can start to understand too.