Materialists
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Look, we're all living in a material world, and if you're in the market for a romantic partner, the conundrum may arise. Date for love or financial security? This is the central premise of the new movie, Materialists. It's got Dakota Johnson at the center of a love triangle with Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. Tough life there. I'm Linda Holmes. And I'm Aisha Harris, and today we're talking about Materialists on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

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Joining us today is podcast producer and film and culture critic Kate Young. Welcome back, Kate. Hi, excited to be back again. Yes, great to have you here. So Materialist stars Dakota Johnson as Lucy, a New York City matchmaker. One evening, she meets a handsome and very wealthy older man played by Pedro Pascal. You look about six feet tall. How much money do you make? Just straight up like that. I make 80 grand a year before taxes. Do you make more or less than that? More. Hmm.

Conveniently, her ex comes back into her life at the same time. He's a cater waiter pursuing an acting career, and he's played by Chris Evans. Lucy finds herself conflicted by her desire to live a soft life and is forced to consider what will make her truly happy. It's written and directed by Celine Song, who made the lovely film Past Lives. Materialists is in theaters now. Linda, I'm going to start with you. What did you make of Materialists?

I basically liked it. I found it to be a little bit flat in places.

I am a sucker for particularly the two guys in this triangle. I have liked Dakota Johnson in some things and not other things. I think they make a very specific decision about the affect for her to have in this film where she sort of always sounds to me like she's making a meditation video or something like that. She's got a very kind of hyper soothing professional voice and

that I clearly is a decision. It's not a lack of skill. It's the choice that they made about how she should present. I found it a little distracting. So that performance was tough for me. I did very much appreciate the fact that, as you mentioned in the intro, it is a film that allows people to talk about the fact that finances play a role in how they conduct their lives and how they choose partners, which is,

Movies rarely do, and I appreciated having that be the theme of it. I basically enjoyed it. I certainly did not like it as much as Past Lives. I did not find it as closely observed as that. For me, it is...

Pretty good. Kate, I'm so, so curious to hear your thoughts about this movie. Tell us, tell us. Well, it seems like I'm the lone dissenter because I liked this a lot more than Past Lives, to be completely honest. I didn't dislike Past Lives. It just didn't quite hit me the way that it hit everyone else. Whereas with Materialists, I felt like I got a much...

clearer and more accessible insight into Celine Song's kind of thought process. I am also a Dakota Johnson apologist. She's one of the few people who can get me to watch pretty much anything. And I think in this role, she does exactly the kind of Dakota Johnson thing that I like from her. And so that was delightful. I really also like the male leads. I think Chris Evans is doing some work here that is

maybe not quite as good as we might like, but certainly better than he's done in quite some time. I think the last performance of his that I really enjoyed was in The Gray Man.

Very little needs to be said about Pedro Pascal. I think he's great. It's very plain spoken about the fact that marriage is a business arrangement. That's something that she straight up says a handful of times in the film. Right. And like, I have always appreciated that perspective specifically because, you know, now that we've kind of come back around to soft life, like, I think it makes sense to recognize that like the other side of that is that

Yeah, this is an interesting setup here because...

Linda, you kind of liked it. Kate, you really liked it. And I really was turned off by this movie. And I was one of those people who loved past lives and felt that it was tapping into...

this very old school way of thinking about love like a love triangle like something we've seen many many times before but doing so in such a different way if you've seen past lives i don't even know if you could technically call it a love triangle it's more so just like a movie about sort of lots of what ifs and what could have been and that's what i love about that movie and here i think

song is very much going back to a more traditional well. And that is not a, for me, that's not a fault in and of itself. Like I love romantic comedies. I enjoy romantic dramas. I enjoy the will they and won't they have it all. But there was just something about this film. And I think I also very much appreciated the idea of putting all of this materialism to the forefront and

And really thinking about, like, how this all affects how we value ourselves. That's a huge part of this movie is, like, how we consider ourselves as valuable. Those questions were interesting and felt of the moment, whereas I felt as though the actual romance at the center was lacking, right?

I don't think Dakota Johnson has the range that this role requires. It requires her to go from being this very materialist person to eventually sort of softening herself. And I think the way it goes about that, we might talk about it later, but there is a sort of twist or like a conundrum that comes up about midway through the film.

that really kind of like sets in motion what's supposed to be her journey, her emotional journey. To me, it's both signals a fault with the script and like how little there is to this character beyond her being a matchmaker who's very plain spoken about money. And then also just like

Dakota Johnson is able to do with this character. And so when we get the sort of big grandstanding, I love you thing at the end, I just could not buy into it. And I will say like the way this ends, you know, more or less who she's going to end up with. It's very, very obvious who she chooses. And she does choose someone. This isn't a movie where, you know, she ends up with herself. Yeah.

So I'm curious, you know, how did this romance work for you both? Like, I actually disagree about that softness. I don't think that there's softness in the end. And I think that's kind of part of the point, right? The conversation that she has with Pedro Pascal about why they need to split is to me the other side of why she's choosing to be with Chris Evans, not because like,

Yeah.

That's partly why I was just not on board. I'm like, okay, cool. Edmonton's less. But like no money is not the same as less money. And he has no money. So like maybe let's not. Yeah, but she also has no money. She says in that clip that we played in the intro that she makes $80,000 a year before taxes. Before taxes. Before taxes. And she lives in New York City. Right.

I don't know that he's necessarily making that much less money than that. It would feel different to me if it was her saying, I don't want to have to support someone else who can't be self-supporting.

But it seems like what she's really saying is more like, I want someone to make it possible for me to live a rich person's life. I absolutely appreciate the plain spokenness of saying, like, I care about finances. I think about financial security when I think about partners. Yeah. I'm less into, like, I want you to be a multimillionaire. I think the movie sets up a lot of very interesting themes.

kind of questions about money and love, but I'm not sure where it actually comes down on those questions. And I think what you're saying, Kate, about the fact that you were rooting against this couple, I think in a lot of ways,

The movie is rooting against the couple and the movie is making various points against the couple. And this is where we kind of get into the other thing that is kind of rubbing me the wrong way about this movie, which is seeing it promoted as a romantic comedy, which in my opinion, it is not. It's more of a romantic drama, I would say. I almost feel like the couple is getting together at the end of the movie, like,

just sort of because that's the kind of movie they're trying to make it be more than because it makes any sense. I don't understand how to square much of what happens with the movie with the ending unless you just assume that it has very traditional ideas about romance and love and, you know, money's not the most important thing. To me, that's fine. It's a drama. It's a different kind of movie. But then you don't need...

In some ways, the neatness of this ending, which is kind of the neat ending that belongs in a romantic comedy that has the pleasures of a romantic comedy that this to me doesn't have. Yes, I agree with that. And again, like I said, I was reading against them. And up until the very end, I thought that she would end up alone and that would give her the opportunity to kind of meet someone again.

Yeah, I just found myself very confused by the Dakota Johnson character's entire MO. I do want to talk about sort of the midpoint where...

Which to me was kind of what made me throw my hands up in the air while watching this movie, which is, you know, she is a matchmaker. I will say one thing I do like about this film is that there are sort of like kind of Nora Ephronist montages where you have various clients acting.

both men and women who are giving Dakota Johnson's character, like all their requirements for what they want. And she's like, you're being unrealistic. You're being sexist. You're being misogynist. Like you want someone who is fit. And that really means like stick skinny, whatever. I enjoyed those things. But then we also have a, we learn that,

that she set up two clients together and one of them had a very, very bad experience with that client. And it's supposed to be an emotional connection that leads Dakota Johnson's character to suddenly realize that she wants something more than just money.

Again, I feel as though this is where the traditionalist instincts, I think, of this movie kind of fall flat for me. It's not just that she has to end up with someone at the end of this film like a romantic comedy would. And this is also what makes it not a comedy because I don't think a comedy would have put this plotline in it, this B plotline in it. But also just like...

we're going back to this idea that the protagonist is going to suddenly like have an emotional change of heart based on the trauma or like the pain of a tertiary character. It felt very icky to me and I didn't understand why that plotline would be there except for the fact that again, I do think this character is not written strongly. I mean, I think

that the role that that incident plays in the film, it's set up in the movie to be exactly as you say. It's sort of a moment that causes her to rethink. It's not clear to me whether she's like mostly rethinking her own personal life, in which case I'm not sure what it has to do with this decision, which is how it's framed as a decision between these two men. Yeah. Neither one of whom is a bad, scary guy. So I'm not sure what it would have to do with that. Right. Or it's

Is it about her rethinking her job? I'm not sure that they put it together in a way that fully makes sense. I don't really know for sure whether Dakota Johnson at the end of the movie still kind of believes her own spiel or not. And I agree with Kate that a really promising thing to pursue would have been the idea that you don't actually have to choose between only two guys. A guy with very little financial security background.

and a gazillionaire. That does not have to be the choice. There are a lot of people in the world that you can end up with, particularly if you look like Dakota Johnson. Come on, man. They create a bunch of really interesting pieces, one of which is like sort of semi-dirtbag Chris Evans, which I think is a really promising direction, which I really like. Gosh, I think he's so charming. I would love to see him do more romantic comedy. Like,

do more actual romantic comedy, which I think is really a potential strength for him. Peter Pascal is such an interesting actor and has done so many interesting things. And I do think like there's some really interesting stuff about his insecurities and his feeling about kind of his masculinity and power in the world. A lot of this performance is about

The Pedro Pascal thing in that, like, he's infinitely charming. He's gonna make you smile. Like, you can't help yourself. But I think that there's also a level of, like, vulnerability under there that I haven't seen in any of his roles. Granted, I haven't seen everything he's done. But, like, I really appreciated that we got to see both the, like...

I'm very rich and I could have any woman I wanted. And also the maybe that wasn't always true and I'm feeling kind of weird about it. Yes, yes. I love that. It makes that character a lot more interesting than just...

the rich guy that she maybe wants to marry for money. Yeah. I think in that character, there's the seeds of something that could have been really, really elevated from epic drama. And it's just so both bizarre what we learn about him and what he's done to make himself not feel as vulnerable. To make himself a unicorn, as she calls him. To make himself a unicorn. It kind of speaks to the fact that no matter how wealthy you are, we

We all have insecurities. They manifest in different ways and money can help you alleviate those things in ways that they can't for those of us who do not have that kind of money. I mean, specifically with the incident in the middle of the film, like I didn't take that as change in her perspective on love so much as a change on her perspective of her job. Right. She spends most of the movie on.

straight up saying like people are assets and these are their values. And I think when this happens, she's kind of forced to do a hard stop that like actually no, they're people and like people things happen to them. And like some of those people things are bad. She can't like ignore that fact just because she's being asked to primarily focus on the finances. And I think that that is also partly why she heads right back on to Chris Evans because like he's,

He's not going to hurt her, to the best of our knowledge. They've already done this. They were together for five years. She knows that she loves them. When they broke up the first time, she said, that is not that I don't love you. It's that we're broke and I don't like that. I don't like being broke. It's not a fun experience for anyone. But I think that now that she's recognizing that even with the finances, you're not safe, it gives her a little bit more room to say, well, maybe these are other things that I can consider as well. I don't think this movie is good.

But I do think it's fascinating. And I think that whatever its faults, it feels very of its time. It doesn't necessarily translate to like dramatic perfection in any way in the way that like past lives does. I mean, come on, Teo, you and Greta Lee have everything.

so much chemistry and they are supposed to be on their laptops thousands of miles away on Skype, like in that movie in past lives. Like they have so much chemistry that like is completely missing from this movie. As much as I've harped on this movie, I do think it's very fascinating, a very fascinating misfire that I have really like enjoyed talking to you and other people about and wondering what happened. Yeah.

This is one where it's really important for me in my own head to try to keep straight the feelings that I have about the film itself from the feelings that I have about the discussion of genre that has surrounded this movie and sometimes surrounds similar movies. The critic Thomas Lafley was talking on Blue Sky and was talking about feeling really frustrated by people saying like, oh, I like this movie. It's so much better than a romantic comedy. Who is saying that? Yeah, who is saying that? Yeah.

But it was like, it's this feeling of this movie, I think, is potentially having a little bit of elevationitis that you will hear about sometimes with genre where people are like, oh, it's elevated fantasy. It's elevated science fiction. And in this case, this is like an elevated romantic comedy. And unfortunately, like, that's kind of how it sounded when Dakota Johnson was talking about it. That's what they think they made, I think. I don't want to watch a romantic comedy made by people who don't like romantic comedy.

But again, it's not a romantic comedy. It's a drama. It's not. That's what I'm saying. Like, I find all of the external discussion about this film a lot more frustrating than I find the film itself. And I will say, listen...

Chris Evans can propose to me with a daisy. I accept in advance. I might take it from Pedro, but not from Chris. Kate and I will take Pedro. We'll enjoy that. Obviously, yes. Also, him. Yes, of course. Yes. Absolutely.

Well, tell us what you think about Materialists. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash pchh and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash nprpopculture. We'll have a link to that in our episode description. And that brings us to the end of our show. Kate Young, Linda Holmes, thank you so much for being here. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio. And you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free.

Please find out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Hufzah Fathima and Mike Katzeff and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks so much for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris. We'll see you all next time.

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