Zac Efron & Nicole Kidman Are Doing Their Own The Idea Of You
The parallels are pretty obvious.
There’s a phenomenon in Hollywood where every few years, two movies with almost the exact same concept come out at the same time. A Bug’s Life and Antz were released only a month apart in 1998, just like how No Strings Attached and the similar commitment-phobic rom-com Friends with Benefits both hit the big screen in 2011. Now, it looks like another pairing is entering this strange category: Zac Efron’s new romantic comedy A Family Affair seems to have a very similar plot to the recently released age-gap romance The Idea of You. Although, the new movie may improve on one element that The Idea of You kind of glossed over.
The trailer for A Family Affair dropped on May 29, providing a first look at Efron playing the self-absorbed actor Chris who falls in love with an older woman named Brooke (Nicole Kidman). The only problem is that Brooke is the mother of Chris’ fed-up assistant Zara (Joey King), who does not approve of the relationship when she finds out about it.
If that story sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you watched The Idea of You, which was released just weeks before this trailer dropped. As with A Family Affair, The Idea of You centered on a single mom who finds an unexpected romance with a very famous younger man. In that movie, the mom’s daughter is a fan of pop star Hayes Campbell rather than his assistant, but her disapproval of the love connection is just as pivotal to the story.
While the two movies seem to have similar plot lines, it looks like one main character in A Family Affair could be vastly improved from her The Idea of You counterpart. The Netflix trailer shows that Zara loudly objects to her mom’s new boyfriend, and has a deep disdain for Chris as a person. It seems she’ll be much more present in the movie than Soléne’s daughter Izzy was in The Idea of You.
For the bulk of that movie, Izzy was either away at camp or staying with her dad. It wasn’t until the last few scenes that she actually talked to her mom about how uncomfortable her relationship with Hayes had been making her feel. At least in A Family Affair, the daughter’s feelings will be very well-known throughout the movie.
You’ll be able to decide which “mommy’s got a celebrity boyfriend” movie you like best when A Family Affair premieres on Netflix on June 28.
