To state the obvious, the ABC and TBS show “Cougar Town” was no deep prestige drama.
Nowadays, however, a more mature woman hopping into bed with a fit 20-something is being portrayed, not as taboo or sultry, but as a great and noble American aspiration.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of Coreys.
Take last week’s “A Family Affair” on Netflix , in which Nicole Kidman plays a widowed California writer and mother named Brooke who unexpectedly hooks up with action star Chris Cole played by by Zac Efron — 21 years her junior.
The Nicole Kidman-Zac Efron rom-com “A Family Affair” is a much more serious cougar story. Aaron Epstein/Netflix
While there is some comedy that emerges from a quirky situation — her daughter is the hunk’s personal assistant — the film is, for the most part, about a drifting woman whose husband died 11 years earlier and is closed off to finding love again.
She has, erm, quite the change of heart when she feverishly rips off Efron’s shirt and marvels at his abs as though she’s just encountered the Great Pyramid of Giza. We’re meant to rabidly applaud this personal victory as if it’s our own and maybe even shed a small tear.
Proving the movie’s more than pure frivolity, Kathy Bates is in it.
During their first drunken encounter, Kidman rips off Efron’s shirt. YouTube / Netflix
Anne Hathaway, 41, stars as a Los Angeles art gallery owner who starts a fling with a world-famous, 24-year-old British boybander despite the prying lenses of the paparazzi and their decade-and-a-half age difference.
Based on Robinne Lee’s popular novel, the story is said to be modeled after Olivia Wilde and Harry Styles’ high-profile, two-year romance.
Anne Hathaway’s Solène falls hard for boybander Hayes in “The Idea of You.” AP
Hathaway’s Solène — what a name — is depressed about being over the hill. Adding to the torment of the calendar, she’s stymied by a jackass ex-husband and is the lonely mother to a teen daughter who’s close to leaving the nest.
Then lucky Solène acts as an unwitting chaperone on her kid’s trip to an iconic music festival, and leaves with an A-list singer being infatuated with her. Call it “Coachella Enchanted.”
Her whirlwind courtship with sexy Hayes is shown as a deeply meaningful sharp turn in life rather than some bubbly fun set to pop songs. The pair cry rivers, deal with social media backlash and have focused conversations about their future.
There’s not a single moment of “The Idea of You” where the audiences doesn’t root for Solène and Hayes’ relationship. AP
There’s not a second of the movie where viewers don’t root hard for Solène and Hayes’ relationship to work out in the end. Earning our approval is not always the chief goal of age gap stories, but this “Idea,” the film insists, is a superb one.
I am all for the cougs’ bold new era. The movies allow appealing Academy Award winners like Kidman and Hathaway to escape the narrow confines of Oscar bait. And the films entertainingly turn an old joke on its head.
Forget “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.” Right now, Hollywood is the Planet of the Cougars.
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