Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s ‘The Idea of You’ follows Solene Marchand, an art dealer and a single mother reeling from a divorce after her husband cheated on her. Her desire to have some alone time is ruined when she is forced to take her daughter and her friends to Coachella, where she meets Hayes Campbell, the singer in a boy band called August Moon, which her daughter used to love. The sixteen-year gap between Solene and Hayes becomes the reason for conflict in their otherwise great romance.
Apart from trying to figure out a way to tackle the public scrutiny of their relationship, Solene also has to run her art gallery, called Marchand Collective, in Silver Lake, which plays a pivotal role in her and Hayes’ relationship.
Marchand Collective is a Fictional Art Gallery
‘The Idea of You’ is the cinematic adaptation of Robinne Lee’s romance book of the same name. While the story has some parallels with real life, it remains entirely fictional, including all the characters and their workspaces. Marchand Collective is not a real art gallery in Silver Lake, LA, and was created by Lee simply to serve Solene’s character. Moreover, the film has been shot in Atlanta and Savannah, even though most of the story takes place in LA, which means that the scenes relating to the art gallery were most likely filmed on a made up set.
Being an art dealer is a crucial part of Solene’s life. When Lee started writing the novel, she had a clear idea of who she wanted the protagonist to be. She wanted a middle-aged woman who wasn’t like the generic portrayal of women in Hollywood, where they are shown past their prime with no focus on their romance or sex life, so to speak. The author wanted her protagonist to be “sophisticated, elegant, smart, cultured.”
She specifically chose the field of art for Solene for several reasons. The first was that writing about it would require her to research and give her the opportunity to learn more about art. Another thing that prompted her was the memory of a woman at an art fair in Aspen. This woman was the epitome of what Lee wanted Solene to be, the kind of person that would spark intrigue in another person. The author thought about that woman while writing about Solene, and due to the connection of the art fair with that memory, the picture got clearer in her head.
On top of Solene’s love for art, Lee gave her a French background. The idea of a French art dealer sounded intriguing to her. Moreover, she found that the French had always been more open about their sexualities, something that was a bit more repressed in America. To put Solene in America allowed the author to explore that French part of her, which she had to repress to fit in better. In a grander scheme of things, it worked out rather well and gave another dimension to Solene’s character.
Read More: The Idea of You: Is August Moon a Real Band? Where to Listen to Their Songs?
