đź“— -> Materialists
Personal Thoughts
Enjoyment
Fun watch! I’m always a sucker for a witty romcom.
ASTERISK, fun watch as in worth watching not necessarily a popcorn flick fun. The dating scenes are like a joke from your mom about you at a dining table. Very personal, and one will eventually land and you’ll be forced to just chuckle awkwardly at it.
It felt a bit like three different ideas for movies, but it did fit together well
- Women’s wall street movie. It feels like a bit of a satire of course, point out some of the ridiculousness of dating, and it might of just been me but it missed some of the sharpness I come to expect from this genre.
- World comes crumbling down, conflict between boyfriends and own place in the world (am I really a materialist, what do I want from a boyfriend as well as own career, what am I doing here, is this moral to clients)
- Self actualization, making amends, and pursuing true love. Felt unnaturally happy for what it set up in the rest of the movie.
Pedro Pascal is always a win for me, what a fella. His scenes are always fun, but he feels too warm for me to view him as a bad match lol. I guess that’s the point? He’s almost perfect on paper but still doesn’t work. He never gets to have an emotional personal talk about Lucy, really believes his money is the romance maker, and seems distant towards her as the movie progresses. But by virtue of being Pedro I still wanted more scenes of him. I almost didn’t believe him to be as distant as he was depicted as being.
Also Dakota Johnson’s delivery was funny at time when she would inflect something in a way that gave me flashbacks to her monologues from Fifty Shades.
I liked the connection between Lucy and John (Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans), but it doesn’t seem like they believe it and justifiably so. “You always know JUST what to say” - Lucy at one point. Their money struggles don’t feel like they will evaporate, and I can perfectly envision them screaming at each other in a car ride, but they also seem to have a deeper more sensitive connection as well. I need to reflect on this a bit more too.
- Their decision is also undermined by the promotion at the end, they likely will be happy, but would they have been otherwise? That’s more the question im interested, no fairy tale endings. He hasn’t changed, has she? I don’t know if I believe she has. She says she still is doing the math.
View of themes
Dating
Lots of fun questions:
- What/how can you create expectations for a partner
- It never fully answers this one, she just casts away her expectations to make it work with John. Will they be happy? Unknown, hopefully!
- Matteeeriallisssmm
- Vulnerability in dating (mainly through Sophie)
- It can hurt to put yourself out there, what happens when no one takes you up on your effort? Also not fully answered, the last we hear directly from Sophie she’s dying alone. She’s never really consoled by Lucy, who seems a bit apathetic to the fact that she’s coming to view herself as worthless. I don’t see continuing to date through the firm as a satisfying answer here. Should the answer be to just continue to bash your head into the wall and steeling your heart? I don’t know, I feel like there has to be some nuance in the approach itself that we don’t tackle at all. I would have completely supported Sophie in taking dating into their own hands instead of going back to the company
- How can you be happy with a partner? Is it extrinsic or intrinsic qualities?
- They do a good job on this one I feel! A lot of different angles get explored, and the viewer gets called upon to make their own answer. Even negative reviews I’ve seen of this movie touch on this extensively. It worked for that if nothing else.
- My take: It’s not math, but it’s also not… nothing else. I’ve always heard love get called 51% of a good pairing. I talked a bit more about this above, I didn’t quite buy their resolution to it.
Money
This might be where the movie falls the flattest for me, they try to make the John > Harry a noble statement about money not being enough but something about its delivery just makes me feel that it is that important. Haven’t quite disentangled it all yet.
I think I talked enough about the movie for now…