Warning: Spoilers below for Amazon Prime's "The Idea of You".

I confess — I've always been a sucker for good age gap movies, and when I saw the ads for Anne Hathaway's just-released The Idea of You, I knew I'd have to get around to seeing it.

I have to say, having read all the dish about the big age gap between Hathaway's single mom, Solene, and boy-band hunk, Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), I was a bit surprised…

The age gap is the least upsetting part.

Don't get me wrong, The Idea of You is a delightful, strong romantic comedy. But the 16-year difference between the protagonists isn't really all that disturbing. This isn't a criticism to the film-makers or the author of the book that inspired the film. On the contrary, it was refreshing to see a deviation from the classic middle-aged white guy falls for barely-legal 18-year-old student.

It got me thinking. There's a reason why they make them like that, why that specific teen-middle age age gap is so shocking and it's not strictly to do with legalities. It's more to do with cognitive development.

See, given the sparse life experience you have at 17–18 and that your brain is still forming, you're technically a baby. Because of that, you can't compare the 30-year age difference between a high school sophomore and a middle-aged man (the subject of another recent release, Miller's Girl) with the 30-year gap between a 67-year-old, for instance, and a woman in her mid-thirties.

Why? It all boils down to life experience.

Given how little of it she has, the 18-year-old is 2–3 generations removed from the 50-year-old. The 30-something old is only one generation removed, in terms of experience and development, from her 67-year-old partner. Because she has lived more.

In other words, the older the two parties, the less shocking the difference, even if the years between them are the same. That's because until we're about 25, we're still in development. After that, however, our characters are well-enough defined for us to be able to weather such age gap relationships with more grace, and from a more equal playing level.

That's why, in The Idea of You, 24-year-old Hayes isn't that shocking for the audience. Which is great, because it actually lets you enjoy the movie.

One aspect that the creators capture beautifully is the heartbreak disparity in such relationships. The horrible thing when you're quite young and get your heart broken in an age-gap relationship is it's your very first heartbreak. And you never forget a first time, do you?

But here's the cruel bit — for the other partner, it's not. They've weathered such storms before, which in the end, makes you feel all the lonelier.

When you're in a relationship with someone around your own age, it's nice, in a way, because you're both new at this getting your heart broken business. You get to experience it together. But when the other person's significantly older…

When heartbroken, puppy-eyed Hayes tells Solene that his fame shouldn't destroy a life, she tells him quite assuredly that it won't.

You're gonna have a big, beautiful life.

And there is such a perfect encapsulation of heartache in that one scene. You can tell she knows. She's already had her heart broken. And I don't know if you can suffer exactly the same as the first time, which makes the first-timer feel so darn weird.

There's a part of a break-up where knowing the other person's fighting to crawl out of bed too helps get you out of bed, in a weird, beautiful way.

In the climax of the movie, Hayes suggests they'll meet each other again, that when they're both a little older, they'll pick this up again. To which, Hathaway shakes her head and tells him,

If you get a shot at happiness, you take it, okay?

And promises to do the same.

It's a bit of a let-down that, in order to give audiences "a hopeful ending", the creators do make the characters get back together after 5 years. I understand they changed that from the book ending, where they don't. Where Hayes still calls and texts Solene but, after a while, stops.

Life does that to you.

You eventually get over that first-time heartbreak. And it's amazing. I thought it was a bit counter-intuitive to suggest that after five years, they're still both depressed and moping. It made me wonder — do we really need hopeful endings in romance?

Is that the only way in which a love story can remain a meaningful love story? If it has a happy or hopeful ending?

I hope not. I think some love stories end in heartbreak and hurt and loneliness, but also in growth and getting stronger, and cherishing that precious finite period in your life forever.

I think we need more films talking about that. Personally, I would've loved the movie a bit more if they both eventually moved on, Hayes in particular, but having grown from that relationship, from that special point in time.

Because it's true that meeting someone special is rare. Meeting them at the right time in both your lives is even rarer. We have no idea how many great matches and sparks are lost simply because one or both of those people are in the right place at the wrong time.

Me, I think there's something terribly romantic about that, too.

I mentioned being a little disappointed at many of the reviews I saw for focusing on the age gap. There were some far more worrying aspects of the movie, I thought, like the cruelty and callousness we project as a society against women of a certain age. That and the insane pressure of a 24-hour digital access to someone's life were far more concerning, for me, than the 16-year gap between the two lovebirds.

Why is it that when it's a woman, it's 'predatory', but when it's a man, it's nothing unusual?

Because we expect women to be maternal and protective. That's the best I can come up with, at least. Which translates to, dating someone that much younger is dangerous, predatory and vaguely criminal. Which apparently we expect of men…?

Hey, don't look at me, I'm as outraged as you are. I'm just trying to decode our moral code as a society.

It seems to me we'd be far better off, when judging others' private lives, if we kept an eye out for abusive behavior. At any age. For diminishing comments. For bruises. For careless or sexist words. You know, actual problems.

What has always bugged me about these insidious oh she could be his mum (or dad, or whatever) comments is that they create a pretense of caring about the young person. Of wanting what's good for them. When we all know it's fake, mostly. We're either jealous or just like some good old gossip.

Maybe if we actually tried to have someone's best interest at heart, regardless of age, there'd be fewer abusive and disadvantaged relationships out there.

Or maybe we should focus less on other people's business altogether. It's always nauseating to me that nobody tells people (whether gossip-hunting journos or teenagers blasting you with their phone cameras) to just f — off.

We've normalized someone filming you or being in your business 24/7, without you having any right to complain whatsoever. Which, I think, should be the headline of more of these movie reviews. Sure, Anne Hathaway's character might be having some pretty steamy scenes with a much younger dude, but in an age where privacy is a dream of the past, I'd argue we're all getting f — d.

Thank you for reading.

I write stuff. Fiction. Psychology. Movie Reviews. Some poetry. The third (and final) volume in my fantasy series, The Warhound Trilogy, is out now. Check out the entire series for only ten bucks.