Here’s Why It’s Different From the Book

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Idea of You.]

We’ve got to talk about that ending. Prime Video‘s The Idea of You ends on a very different note from Robinne Lee’s bestselling novel, which follows 40-year-old single mom Solène (Anne Hathaway) and her romance with Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the 24-year-old lead singer of the widely popular boy band August Moon.

The end of the film flashes forward five years after Solène and Hayes’ breakup. In the final moments, Hayes shows up at Solène’s art gallery, giving viewers hope that these two will get back together. However, that’s not how Solène and Hayes’ story ended in the book.

“There’s a very long history in romantic movies of changing the ending so that the two main characters are together at the end. There’s a bit of a pragmatic answer to this, which is that movie audiences just want to see at least that there’s some hope for these two characters at the end of the movie,” director Michael Showalter tells TV Insider. “We don’t have to tell the audience exactly how it ended. We’re not telling the audience exactly where things wound up. But we are at least giving the audience an opportunity to try to fill it in for themselves. As a fan of the genre, I love a romantic story that ends with the two main characters getting coffee because that tells me there’s hope.”

In the book, Solène ends her relationship with Hayes after intense public scrutiny about their age-gap romance and the impact the relationship has on her daughter, Izzy. Hayes quits August Moon to save their relationship, but Solène pushes him to go back to the band and move on with his life.

Hayes reaches out to Solène for months after she ends their relationship, but she never picks up. She ignores his messages until one day they stop completely, signaling that Hayes has finally accepted their split.

Producer Cathy Schulman admits she felt “strongly” from the beginning that she “wanted there to be a possibility that these two people could end up together” in the film. “I felt if we were going to go through the effort of making a movie that was so encouraging about possibilities and love that to leave it undone felt unsatisfying to me for a movie audience.”

She continues, “I felt like the satisfaction factor is different when you’re reading a book, and you’re in your own home. There’s a wistfulness and a sort of melancholy. You close the book, and you can sort of leave and say, wow, that was an amazing moment those people shared together. But I felt for the movie that the visual impact would be so strong that we had to believe there was a possibility for the future.”

In the film, just before Solène and Hayes say goodbye before they don’t see each other for five years, they share a beautiful goodbye at Solène’s house. Showalter explains the reasoning behind the colorful light changes present in the scene.

“I think, for me, it’s a moment of magical reality where Hayes and Solène are honoring the relationship that they had. They’re honoring the love affair that they had and both acknowledging that, at this moment, it can’t continue. I love that moment because they’re frozen in this embrace as the lights are changing around them, staring into each other’s eyes. For me, it’s a moment of them honoring their relationship and celebrating their relationship before they go their separate ways.”

The Idea of You, Streaming Now, Prime Video