A New Wave of Age-Gap Romances Are Making Invisible Women Visible

A Hollywood tale as old as time: the older man and a younger woman. So much so that it’s no longer classified as a trope, but almost an unspoken casting agreement. Now, though, a role reversal seems to be underway, with 2024 standing out as the year of the older woman-younger man romance. 

Twenty-five years on from the punchline of Jennifer Coolidge as Stifler’s Mom seducing her son’s best friend in American Pie, more intricate and thoughtful storylines about age-gap romances are finally being executed. In 2023, Emma Thompson was nominated for a Golden Globe for her transgressive role in Good Luck To You, Leo Grande. Playing a widower who hires a much younger sex worker, Thompson was praised for exploring a narrative of female sexuality at a time when these stories were universally ignored on screens. 

Since then, a wave of films depicting women reclaiming their sexuality and exploring their identity through age-gap romances have graced screens: The Idea of You (Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine), Family Affair (Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron) and Lonely Planet (Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth). More recently, Babygirl has become social media’s latest obsession, with various clips of the electric chemistry between Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson going viral. 

While The Idea of You, Family Affair and Lonely Planet were met with less than complimentary reviews by some critics, there is no denying the streaming numbers. In the first two weeks of its release on Prime Video, The Idea of You broke streaming records, securing over 50 million views. Both Family Affair and Lonely Planet took Netflix’s number one film spot within their first week. What these numbers reveal is an undeniable truth: something about this trope resonates deeply with audiences. The disdainful commentary around these films (“Why would these actresses do films like these?”) may stem from a restrictive view of the aspects of the female experience that women are permitted to portray.

Although it would be easy to dismiss the success of these films as due to natural curiosity about their intimate content, they have enabled women to view themselves in a way that they rarely do on screens. In The Idea of You,  Hathaway, who plays a 40-year-old splitting her time between her art gallery and her teenage daughter, taps into the life of a woman searching for love in the bleak Los Angeles dating scene, before finding it in a 24-year-old pop star. This fantasy of a fun, no-strings-attached, first love fling, all the while preserving the accomplishments of a well-established career, has clearly struck a chord with audiences.

Seeing other women at the top of their careers, in places of power, and in a moment of life that has been anecdotally described as a time where they become ‘invisible,’ and are now once again desired, could also be a draw card for viewers. Babygirl plays with this idea of desirability and power as Kidman’s character, a CEO, engages in a relationship with her much younger intern. While the well-worn story of an older man and a younger woman would almost certainly be met with discussions about abuses of power, Babygirl appears to tip this on its head. Questioning who holds the power when, in a world where women at the peak of their careers are societally seen as less desirable, a younger man expresses interest in a powerful woman, essentially making the invisible woman visible again. 

What is also worth noting about this wave of rom-coms are the A-List, Oscar-winning actors tying themselves to them. On her decision to star in The Idea of You,  Anne Hathaway told Vogue Australia at the film’s SXSW premiere that she just wanted to “have fun.” “I don’t want to be placed in a box of what type of films I have to be making because of my age, gender and because I won an Oscar. I want to have fun, dammit! It speaks to me,” Hathaway said.

Kidman, who has appeared in two films of the subgenre, commented on her role in A Family Affair in an interview with Variety. “It’s always been older men and younger women and everyone’s like, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and I think that needs to be kind of demystified,” said Kidman. “Having a female write this, and now having more stories and all the work we’ve done for a decade, just to get all the different stories out there… just with that perspective of women, without the judgement behind it,” explained Kidman. 

Look, too, at the teams behind those films released in the past year: Babygirl is directed by Halina Reijn, A Family Affair written by Carrie Solomon, The Idea of You originally written by Robinne Lee and Lonely Planet directed by Susannah Grant. It gives some insight into the stories women want to tell once they’re given the resources and support to create them. 

While there is a way to go in making these older female characters more dynamic in their stories, 2024 has certainly opened the door for female writers and directors to gain funding and backing for telling them.