Speaker 1: We're Tamy Lorenzo and this is the Bitter Kitten Movie Club.
Hellicitten's welcome back to another edition of the BKMC, a
supplemental edition of the Pop Style Opinions podcast where we
take a look at one film per week and just
dive into it. This week's film is Materialist by director
Celine Song, who directed twenty twenty three's Past Live Star
in grete Lee that was an OSCAR nominated film, and
this was her follow up film in twenty twenty five.
It stars Dakota Johnson as a New York City matchmaker
and Pedro Pascal as a New York City finance guy
and Chris Evans as a New York City struggling actor.
Speaker 2: It's a city loser.
Speaker 1: It's a romance, but I mean it. I think it
tries to be a romance and that's and at certain
points it's it somewhat fails. But I want to say
that before we flipped on the mics, I joke, well,
wasn't a joke. I said to Lorenzo. I was like,
I really don't think this is going to be a
long one, and he said, no, it's not a very
deep film. But I do want to say, first off,
that there are a couple of things I want to unpack,
and secondly, uh, it's a flawed film, But I actually
did enjoy it. It was an enjoyable two hours. It was
very attractive people. There was banter and flirting, and you know,
the locations were gorgeous, and you know, it was at
least half of the film deals with very wealthy people
in very wealthy settings, so it all looked very pretty.
In some ways, it reminded me of a nineties film.
In some ways, it actually reminded me of the first
half of it, because the film actually does change about
halfway through. First half of it reminded me of like
Sex and the City, Oh, where it was.
Speaker 2: You know, she was.
Speaker 1: Interviewing women about what they were looking for in a man,
and then she was interviewing men about what they were
looking for. And it was all these like talking heads,
and it was commentary on dating life and specifically dating
life in New York, with a focus on the types
of people you know, high Well, I'm going to use
the term because that's exactly the term. It's actually the
theme of the film. It's like high value men seeking
out high value wives. Right, you know, it's it's that Tamelia,
It's that dynamic and it if I had to sum
up where the film fails is it really tried to
do too much. First half of the film felt like
a romantic comedy with dramatic under tones. It wasn't super
hilarious comedy, but it was light and flirty and I
was really into it. Second half of the film, well,
first off, I I'm sitting there going, you know, it's
not a puzzlebox film. You don't have to sit there
and try and guess the ending. But I was sitting
there thinking, there's really only one way they can end
this film, which is she winds up with Chris Evans,
because otherwise you have her going for the rich guy
that she's not in love with. She's clearly not in
love with. But I couldn't see how are you going
to get her with Chris Evans because you have set
it up in such a way that it absolutely makes
sense why these two people are not together anymore. It
absolutely makes sense why they should not be together. So
you got to get them to that point where they're
together and that feels correct. And the last five that's
twenty minutes of this film I'm like, nope, you have
lost me completely. I don't buy that she is that person, right.
Speaker 3: I don't think they ever succeeded, she ever succeeded the
director in Why these two waded up together? No, she
would not be with him, so's toxic. No, No, and
she would not be with him. But that's the movie,
you know. You know, a successful woman gives up everything
to be with the thing is she's not that successful. Well,
she is successful to us, she's ambitious.
Speaker 1: She's okay, that's a good point. The film, surprisingly is
a romantic pseudo comedy that is actually unpacking some fairly
heavy questions about dating and about modern romance and relationships.
And the entire point of the film is, the entire
perspective of the film is value. Who has value? And
what how is value measured in relationshi ships? And you know,
it's a cynical film, at least for part of it. Actually,
I would say it's a cynical film completely that tries
to tack on a sentimental ending, and that is why
it doesn't work right. And I was buying the cynicism.
The one woman's matchmakers said, you're not ugly, you're just poor,
as to explain why someone's you know, not not getting offers.
Stuff like that is really funny. Stuff like you know,
all all of the women saying that the man has
to be over six feet tall, has to be making
over you know, six hundred thousand a year, and every
man is saying she's got to be twenty.
Speaker 2: Eight or I know exactly.
Speaker 1: It's cynical and it's you know, it's it makes a point.
It makes a point. And you kept saying all throughout
the first half of the film, thank god, I'm not dating.
Speaker 2: I know. That's real.
Speaker 3: That's really shit. I know it's especially in New York.
I mean, I if you have any experience dating in
New York, and we do in a way, no, we don't.
Well we have friends, we know people dating. You know,
we have that kind of experience of like gay dating
in New York, and it's it's brutal. It's New York
is brutal. They just yeah, I guess because they have
I don't know.
Speaker 1: It depends on what social scene you're looking at. I mean,
she is part I'm sorry, ahead, now, go ahead, that's it.
She's a matchmaker who works for high you know, income clients.
So she is working in a specific social milia. She's
working with specific types of people. So let's talk about
the cast. Let's talk about the fact that Dakota Johnson.
I defended her because you're like, she can't act at all,
and I was like, she can, but she's extremely low
key in her acting. And then I settled on the
term on the word lazy. She's a lazy actress. She
doesn't really work all that hard in any of her scenes.
And I do want to say she's upholding the family tradition.
Her mother is Melanie Griffith, her grandmother is Tippy Hedron,
and they both were very low energy actresses who you know,
just had a very laid back, low key sort of style.
And you know, we're often told that they couldn't act either.
So she's part of like a family dynasty of heavy lidded,
low voiced women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just that lazy attitude. In general.
Speaker 1: She's very much in Nepo baby the way she speaks.
Speaker 3: And I'm you know, I've watched interviews with her, h
the actor, and she talked about like, yeah, I can't
be I can't get up before ten, you know, I
have you know, whatever, Like she's sort of.
Speaker 1: Like Gwyneth Paltrow in a way where her her real
personality can't help, but just to infect everything right, right,
every portrayal, so's she's always to Coda Johnson.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of privilege there and very little acting,
but you know she yeah, So that comes across.
Speaker 1: It does, and part of I want to get into
Chris and Pedro Pascal, but just as an overview, I
want to say, I think everyone in this film was miscast,
and this was part of the reason why it doesn't
quite work for me. Pardon me. I read a review
of the film I think it was in New York
Magazine by Angelica jay Bastian, the film critic, where she said,
Dakota Johnson has never winced at a bill, and that's
very evident in her Like she's privileged girls. Why I
compared her to Gwyneth Paltrow, She's that girl. You can't
have her play someone who can. I totally bought her
as someone who was obsessed with money and obsessed with value,
which she is or was. I could not buy her
as someone struggling in a shitty apartment. I'm like, that
girl doesn't live in a shitty apartment. That girl has
never lived in a shitty apartment because she can't play
that girl. And there was much at the time made
of the film because the film deals with economics so much,
deals with class and income levels so much that the
film was widely criticized. When she quoted that she made
eighty thousand a year and she lives in an apartment
on her you can't live it right in an apartment
on your own in New York City on eighty thousand
a year. And actually that that quote took me right
out of the film because I was like, she doesn't
make that character would make one hundred and twenty at least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean when she said how much she takes
home new you know, like that that does not make
sense with that apartment. I mean, you saw the apartment
had a nice interest in everything.
Speaker 1: It made a little balcony. I think it's small, but
it's decent for New York.
Speaker 3: I was like, there's no way you make only eighty
eighty two thousand a year.
Speaker 1: And then the other issue is that everyone in this
film is too old. But why don't we take a
break on that little bit I'm shell and then we'll
come back and unpack it. We're back, and now I'm
gonna call all of these people old. Now it's like this.
So at one point Chris Evans, who actually I really
appreciated what he was doing in this film. He was
working very hard and he was doing a good job,
but ultimately he was miscast. It's really hard to look
at Chris fucking Evans and think, oh, yeah, that guy's
a loser and he can't get a decent job and
he's an actor, and no one wants to that guy.
Speaker 2: Come on, there are.
Speaker 1: Plenty of good looking, right, non working actors out there.
But it's he had to play like this bitter slub
and I don't know how well he pulled it off,
although he did. Acting wise, I thought he was fine.
But at one point he said he mentioned his age
and he said, I'm thirty seven years old, and I
think he said I only have two thousand dollars in
the bank or whatever, and I immediately I was like,
you're not thirty seven years old like that, And that
actually took me out of the story because the entire
Chris sevens is like forty five. I haven't looked it
up and put bluntley, he looks it. I mean maybe
he's had some work done, but he looks forty five
to me, So in the film, I'm like, okay, so
you're a struggling actor with three roommates. And if an
actor eight or nine years younger who looked eight or
nine years younger had played that part, I would have
stayed in the story a little bit more. But I
don't want to sound judgmental here, but I mean, if
you're forty five in living that lifestyle, that is pure
loser and you are not boyfriend or husband material, and
that couldn't be any clearer. So if he was a
little bit younger, I would have bought or looked a
little bit younger, because you know, Chris is looking a
little ragged, which is fine. He's aging like a Paul
Newman type and he'll always be really good looking. Similarly,
she at one point has a very blunt It was
actually a great conversation with with Pedro Pascal about value
and Huber and what his value is in a relationship
and what her value is in a relationship, and in
the context of the type of relationships we are talking about.
Her value is that she's gorgeous and that she's young,
and that she's still fertile, like all of this was
in the conversation, except she's putting up all of these roadblocks.
She's saying all these things about how I'm not right
for you and I'm only gonna data man who I
wind up marrying. And and then she mentions that she's
thirty five, and again like, I mean, Dakota Johnson could
actually play younger than that if they wanted to cast
her younger. But it really took me out because I thought, not, obviously,
I'm talking about the milliare. I'm talking about specific people
in a specific setting with specific values. And the values
and the setting and the world that Selene's song created
for these characters is not a world where a thirty
five year old woman who wants to marry and wants
to marry a rich guy is picky, right, or throwing
up roadblocks. And in fact, she talks about that about
her clients. You know how picky they are, and they're
getting old and they you know, they can't be that
picky anymore. And I understand that there's a certain irony
in the fact that she is making the same mistakes
that her characters are making. But I again, the age
thing pulled me out of it because I was like,
if she was thirty and Chris Evans's character was thirty five,
all of this would work for me much much better
both because they're both you know, half a decade or
more older than that. I feel like, you know, dating
for the marriage minded at thirty years old is one thing.
At thirty five, it starts becoming something else. And I
am not being judgmental about single people or dating or
I'm talking about the people in this milliear wealthy Manhattan
nights and the women who are running you know, who
want to marry them. And to me, I was like, okay,
they it's just little things like that. Where Selene's song
who I think co wrote it, You didn't have to
mention her salary or their ages and we could have
writ but you did. You put numbers on them. And
now it's like, well, I don't know that any of
this actually scans for me.
Speaker 3: I think it worked for me in the beginning because
I thought she was very strong about her opinions about
what she wanted, her values or whatever. She wouldn't she
talked about winning a very rich man, not just Richmond,
a very very rich man. Uh, and then you know,
and it makes sense to the thing she says, the conversation
she has with with with Chris Evans, the kind of
the fight they have, and she talks about, you know,
I'm I'm about how she doesn't want to be with
him because she's going to be mad at herself. It
was such a great, very realistic conversation that you know,
I can't be with you because I'm going to be
angry at me, at you, at everything, and.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna hate myself for being angry at you.
Speaker 2: And so that was awesome. Uh. And then you know.
Speaker 1: It was one of the best parts of the film
at I think so.
Speaker 3: And then she met, you know, she sort of started
dating Pedro Pascal, which you know, I love him, but
I don't.
Speaker 2: I think he was just wrong for.
Speaker 3: The partscous It's not the kind of guy for that part.
Speaker 2: He's just not.
Speaker 1: He he was like this smooth Well first off, she
kept calling him a unicorn, and I was like, that's
a bit much.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: I think Pedro Pascal can be very, very sexy, but
you've got to give him space to be himself, to
be a little flirtatious, to have that little wink and
the film took all of that out him, and he
just had no right. He was mildly charming, but he
was very very clear that he was the roadblock boyfriend.
That she was going to date this guy, but that's
not the one she was going to wind up with.
And that is like a thankless role for an actor.
And why would you cast an actor like that and
then tamp down on everything that makes him so likable?
And I guess you had a tamp down on that
stuff because otherwise, why wouldn't she wind up with Pedro
Pascal at the end of the movie. So he has
to be somehow a little bit less than perfect, a
little bit less than you know, flirtatious. And so it's
this semi unrecognizable version of Pedro Pascal throughout the movie.
That scene in the kitchen where they broke up, I
was like, what the fuck? Nothing about this fields natural
if nothing emotionally true, none of it. It's just two
people standing apart from each other and just talking back
and forth like a tennis I agree that.
Speaker 2: The whole thing with the with the poor guy with
the poor boyfriend, I just I just don't buy it.
I'm sorry, I don't buy it. At all.
Speaker 1: I just I did not buy it at all. You
had to give me something in the in the beginning
of the film, right, to make me believe that she
was going to make that choice at the end of
the film. And it's really and maybe maybe you're supposed
to look at it this way, it's really hard not
to see that as she's making a bad choice at
the end of the film.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Does do you think there's going to be a baby
in a wedding anytime soon for these people?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'm always a little turned off by that type of story,
that that an ambitious woman ends up, you know, giving
up giving up everything to.
Speaker 2: Be with the love of her love who has no money.
I don't buy that.
Speaker 1: It's such a cliche, and was actually making a really
good case for not doing that. For that, you know,
it would be a bad thing for her to do that.
So I just didn't buy it at the end. And
she didn't have chemistry with either one of those men,
so it was really hard to become invested in either
one of them. She's you know, she's so low key
and hey, and like Chris Evans and her had no
spark whatsoever. She and Pedro Pascal were just looking at
each other and have their scenes.
Speaker 2: I think it was an.
Speaker 3: Interesting movie, uh, in the sense that it talked about
something interesting, which is dating, which is dating, and as
you said, was kind of sarcastic in the beginning. Uh, cynical,
cynical and uh, you know, showing those those situations where people,
you know, can't believe that they don't have anybody. But
then they you know, when they run their you know,
laundry list of things they want and they can't you know,
part with that type of stuff. It's interesting in this
reo and that's what happens. I mean, I see people
like that all the time, friends and everybody who you know,
can't you know, can't understand why they don't have anybody
in there anyway. But so it was interesting. And then
they're the story with one of her. I think the
show with this is about the show.
Speaker 2: The movie.
Speaker 3: The movie was trying to be a little serious and
then had she had that client.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wanted to bring that up because I think
the film. This is another area where the film fails, because,
like I said, the first hour or forty five minutes
or so of the film was a fairly light rom
com about basically wealthy people in New York. And then
the last half of the film or the last third
of the film, it's a rape storyline. And you know,
on a certain level, when you're telling a story about
women ambitiously dating, you know, trying desperately to find that man,
maybe there's a certain responsibility to talk about that part
of it. There was a conversation with her boss whereas
her boss was like her matchmaking boss was like, yeah,
this is what happens. It's dating. This is you know,
I'm not saying you can't do that, but it was
jarring as a tonal shift. And then it became all
about her client who got raped on a date, and
then her rest. I want to say though, that Zoe Winters,
who played her client, Sophie, really fantastic job. There were good,
very scenes where she sobbed and I was like, wow,
she's really in it. I just didn't feel like a
sobbing rape victim felt like it belonged in this movie.
But fine, like I said, it is a movie about
modern dating, and like I said, about ambitious dating, not
not like laid back dating, but dating with a goal.
And yeah, there's going to you know whatever. Not that
I'm suggesting anybody deserved it. I'm just saying, you know,
running in the numbers, it's going to happen.
Speaker 3: Now, let's just make two things clear here. Number one
that yes, when you date, those things happen, and you
know they're horrible, but they happened.
Speaker 2: And and b.
Speaker 3: We're not saying that you know, it's not right to
show that type of situation, or that it's just tonally
it didn't fit, just didn't fit with the rest of
the movie.
Speaker 1: That's there's accusations and crying anything. And I actually didn't
think Sophie, her client had much of a reason to
be mad at her, although she wasn't being very reasonable
at the moment. I don't think she did. Like it
really wasn't Dakota Johnson's fault.
Speaker 3: No, I think the movie was trying to make the
point that you saw a fantasy and then people I
feel betrayed when something like that.
Speaker 1: No, I agree with that. And she did point out
that she basically pushed a low value guy on her
because she didn't think she was a high value client,
and that part was true, and all of that actually
worked thematically.
Speaker 2: But what I.
Speaker 1: Hated hated was that this character's rape became the impetus
for Dakota Johnson becoming a better person. And I'm like,
that's a really shitty way to to write about rape.
And I'm actually surprised a female director was using that storyline,
Like I don't know, it just it didn't sit well
with me. Like there are ways that you can get
a character like Dakota Johnson's to give up her materialistic
ways and become more open to love and blah blah
blah blah, but not by having a side character sexually assaulting.
And it's weird, weird choice.
Speaker 3: And Dakota's character didn't know where she lived, which I
don't believe that.
Speaker 2: I mean, you give that information, I think anyway, So she.
Speaker 3: Found out where she lives and she's stocks starking her
wearing a trench code in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a baseball. I'm like Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: At this point, the film is trying to do way, way,
way too much, and then it wraps up by granting
her a character change, granting her growth that we never
actually saw her achieve on camera. She just is a
better person at the end.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 3: The bottom line is. Two Hours is not enough to
make that change.
Speaker 1: Not only that you're right, but I also I want
to say, did he change? What did he give up?
What did he Yeah, he's nothing. He's going to take
more shift and as a waiter, okay, all right.
Speaker 2: And she's gonna say yes to marry him. Okay.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of a shitty message, like she was
the one that had to give up everything, you know,
change her mind about everything.
Speaker 3: The only thing is she's apparently she's going to say
yes to a promotion.
Speaker 1: I did think that was smart to leave that in there, right,
and you know, although again it didn't feel particularly earned.
The whole film was setting up that she hated her
job and wanted to leave it. But in a situation
where you're going to marry your loser boyfriend who has
no money and probably never will, maybe you're going to
take the job that you hate because they're going to
offer you more money. And I actually thought that that
ended on a on a slightly cynical note. I do
think you Selene's song could have said that ending by
making it a little more clear that it wasn't necessarily
a happy ending, but it may not have been a
happy ending. One other thing what did you think of
the caveman?
Speaker 2: Oh god, yes, I forgot. I hated that.
Speaker 1: So it was soak and precious and ha I hated
not necessary necessary. When the writing about biology here or
when the movie began, I was like, what is going
on here? Is this a play?
Speaker 2: What is this? I had no idea and I was like, no,
what No?
Speaker 1: It was goofy and it was trying to be way
too cutesy about what it was doing, and I and
again sort of muddled the message, like, you know, I
don't know it. I liked when the film was being
I'm not necessarily cynical about romance, but I I thought
the film worked better when it was and when it
got very sentimental, it just didn't work for me. It
didn't work in this world with these characters, right, I mean,
knowing people in New York as we know. I thought
the beginning of the movie was dead on perfect. When
she's she pretending, pretending to be or you know, trying
to be this incredible woman, you know, gorgeous, beautiful, you know, makeup, hair, clothes, right, everything,
because that's her job to promote something glamorous and amazing
and successful. So I thought that was all great, because
you see that a lot in New York. And then
then everything was fine.
Speaker 3: You know, she's cold, she you know, dedicated to her
job and finding you know, love whatever for her clients
and all that. And then all of a sudden she
met the guy, you know, the poor boyfriend from many
years ago, and then everything each everything changes, and it
just changes in a way that doesn't make sense to me.
That that's the problem. Yeah, he's back, but he's still
a loser. He's still someone you decided not to be
with anymore because you thought he wasn't the right person.
Speaker 2: Right, So what changed? Nothing changed? Yeah?
Speaker 3: In fact, he says that, she says, you're still the same,
and he says, well, wish you hadn't said that or
something like that. That right, I wish I was different,
you know. But anyway, so anyway, I.
Speaker 1: Think we have unpacked every aspect of this.
Speaker 2: But actually was far better than I then.
Speaker 1: I had no problem sitting through this movie. I found
it perfectly enjoyable. I just didn't think of it. You know,
it had some laws, and I really didn't buy the ending,
but I didn't walk away from a pissed or anything.
It's pretty, people, It's pretty people. You know, you're just
looking at pretty people for two hours and some funny
funny one. And I mean she did look amazing in
the dress. Looked at the wedding, she looked stunning. She
I mean, she was one of those girls who you
just put on a plane sheath dress and she is
the most gorgeous girl in the room.
Speaker 2: She's just that girl. Looked incredible, incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So that's it for us this week.
We will be back next week with wait, what are
we doing next week? You know what I need to check,
all right, we need to check what the next movie
is going, because well we oh, yes, it's in the
Mood for Love. Oh my god, I love love, love
love that movie, the dresses in that movie, everything about it. Yes,
So In the Mood for Love will be next week,
and we will also be back next week with an
addition of the Pop Style Opinion Pest. So until then,
take care of yourselves, love you mean it.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye