Cliff Notes – Celine Song on rom-com Materialists ending backlash: ‘I’m not asking you to do anything’
- Celine Song, the filmmaker behind Materialists, addresses the backlash regarding the protagonist Lucy’s choices, emphasising that these are fictional characters and not a directive for viewers’ own lives.
- The film critiques modern dating standards, highlighting how societal pressures around wealth and appearance can distort genuine connections, a theme Song believes resonates deeply with audiences.
- Despite mixed reactions about its classification as a rom-com, Song asserts that Materialists retains the genre’s essence by exploring meaningful themes of love and relationships while incorporating humour.
Celine Song on rom-com Materialists ending backlash: ‘I’m not asking you to do anything’
Rom-com Materialists is coming to UK cinemas after causing a stir in the States (Picture: Atsushi Nishijima/A24)
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Celine Song’s former career as a matchmaker stood her in excellent stead to make Materialists, the rom-com about modern dating that has seemingly sent some parts of society over the edge.
It stars Dakota Johnson as successful New York City matchmaker Lucy, who is faced with choosing between charming and attractive private equity partner Harry (Pedro Pascal) or her broke and struggling ex John (Chris Evans).
I assume the Past Lives writer-director must have ripped some of the most ridiculous lines we hear Lucy’s clients spout in the movie from real life: ‘39 is not 30s’ complains one man in his 40s, while female clients fixate on bagging a man who’s at least six feet tall with a $500,000 salary.
But Song is pretty serious when recalling how much these ‘dominant beauty and wealth standards’ warped the job.
‘Unfortunately, what I would hear is a repetition of the same values and I wasn’t hearing enough variety,’ she recalls.
And while it’s then fun to recount some of the most savage lines from Materialists with her, Song is all too aware that this cold way of looking at love was ‘starting to seep into our hearts’.
The movie boasts an A-list cast assembled by filmmaker Celine Song of Chris Evans, Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal (Picture: A24)
‘I think that the math of it [is] trying to overtake love,’ she adds, which is exactly what drove her to tell this story.
‘We’re hearing about height, weight, age, income, and a lot of those things aren’t going to matter very much when you’re 90. When I see your face, I see your wrinkles and grey hair. Who cares what you look like now?’ she asks.
As it’s put in the movie – we should all be looking for a ‘nursing home partner, a grave buddy’, someone willing to change your nappy when you’re old and incontinent.
‘And anybody who loves you, if you ask them “why do you love me?”, they’re not going to say a single number!’
This sums up the dilemma that both Lucy and her clients try to overcome – and according to some passionate fans in the US, where Materialists was released in June, Lucy made the wrong choice.
But some fans have found issue with the choices that Lucy – ‘ a fictional character’, as Song points out – makes (Picture: A24)
Song reveals that she’s more than aware of some of the heated reactions to Materialists.
‘Something that I’ve heard is like, “Well, are you telling me that I need to compromise and settle if I [don’t] want to be single?” And I would always say, I don’t know what you’re talking about because I would never ask you to settle for something. I’m not asking you do anything, these are just characters, it’s a movie – but these are also decisions that Lucy’s making,’ she points out.
‘You can make decisions that you want to make, given that it’s your life. I don’t think there’s any reason in settling for something that you’re ‘entitled’ to. The only thing you’re entitled to from the person who loves you is that they love you!’
In terms of who Lucy ends up with too, Song would also like to remind you that ‘it’s Lucy’s life and these are fictional characters’.
‘Lucy’s telling you that she’s not in love with [redacted], right? So, in which case, I think that she should be believed. I think that she would like to be in love with him in the way that I’m sure all of us would like to be in love with somebody who would be very convenient! It would be great if we could be relieved of financial pressure just because we are with someone, but that does not a marriage make.’
Others have also questioned if it’s a rom-com (Picture: A24)
Past Lives might be a more poignant film on the surface than Materialists, examining the intense nostalgia that comes with the sense of a missed childhood connection, but they’re certainly films that can be viewed as in dialogue with each other – to start with, simply because they are both about a woman trying to ‘make a decision about what she wants in her life’.
‘So much of it is about this woman who is trying to understand her whole life and become a more actualised person,’ says Song, of both.
But it goes much deeper than that too. The filmmaker is delighted when I suggest that her films are more sincere and honest looks at love than we are perhaps used to, in a world where the rom-com is often overly glossy or else ready to deliver a punchline about love.
She knows Materialists reflects herself as the main creative person too – which includes ‘who I am beyond just as the filmmaker, but as somebody who lives and thinks in the world’.
‘I feel I am pretty sincere, I’m pretty honest,’ Song laughs. ‘So I think that those are the only kinds of movies that I could ultimately make. It’s really hard for me to be winking through a conversation or through a movie.’
Materialists reflects its creator Song, someone who is sincere about love (and a former matchmaker herself) (Picture: A24)
As someone who assembled such a stand-out A-list cast – but doesn’t write scripts with actors in mind – I’ve got to discuss with Song how Johnson, Pascal and Evans came on board.
‘I write the characters on the page and then I go out like a matchmaker in search of their soulmate,’ states the director, simply, of her quest for perfection. That seems like a daunting challenge, but unsurprisingly all three of these stars were keen to meet with her following the success of Past Lives.
‘I was getting to know them, and I think at some time in the middle of meeting them, I just realised and I was like, “I think you might be a soulmate to this character, would you read the script?”’
And how could anyone say no to that sort of offer?
If you have even a passing interest in Materialists, it’s been virtually impossible to avoid seeing spoilers for the end; but if you’re even a casual consumer of rom-coms, you’ll see it coming anyway.
However, there is a reveal for Pascal’s Harry that I didn’t expect, which I won’t divulge. Suffice it to say, an uptight man with a more fragile ego might have baulked at it – but Song says: ‘I don’t think that Pedro would have wanted to make this movie without that scene.’
‘My actors understand what it’s like to be treated like merchandise’ (Picture: A24)
It also links perfectly to the central idea of Materialists and how we ‘turn ourselves and each other into merchandise’, according to its director – and it’s something that resonated with three of Hollywood’s hottest stars too.
‘I think that all three of my actors really understand what it’s like to be treated like merchandise. It was so clear that all three of them really fell in love with their characters as people, and that they wanted to commit to the story of the movie because they really understood it and felt it very deeply.’
She adds: ‘I don’t know if Pedro would have wanted to play Harry if he didn’t feel that all this perfection hides something that’s quite broken and a lot of self-hatred: that’s what really made it interesting for him. The way that Chris found John interesting because of the way that he is broken, or the way that Dakota wanted to play Lucy because of the way she’s broken.’
As someone making such talked-about films, I’m keen to get Song’s take on the rom-com genre, and Materialists being labelled as one. This has sparked the other half of the wave of emotionally-loaded criticism, as some fans claim it’s not funny or light enough, while it does also delve into darker – but relatable – dating territory than expected.
I suggest maybe Materialists isn’t in fact a rom-com, but Song is having none of that: ‘I think it’s a rom-com because I feel like it’s a modern romance and you laugh!’
But audiences perhaps don’t expect films with serious themes and depth to be sold that way?
(Picture: A24)
‘I think that’s unfortunate about the way that rom-com as a genre is seen and not about the movie,’ Song counters. ‘Because I think that rom-coms have had, in its heritage, so many movies that are deeply about things that really matter to all of us.’
She namechecks American icons of the genre Billy Wilder (The Apartment), Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally) and James L Brooks (As Good as It Gets), whose films ‘were always going to be about something’.
‘I don’t think I’m doing something that hasn’t been a part of the genre,’ argues Song. ‘I get to invite the audience to two hours of thinking about love, relationships, marriage and dating in the modern world – and then I have an option to either talk about nothing or I can talk about what it’s like to be a human being, which is I think the power of the rom-com as a genre.’
‘It’s unfortunate if that power has been felt as not an essential part of the genre, because for me that’s always been an essential part of rom-coms.’
Materialists is in UK cinemas from Friday, August 15.
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