Spoilers for The Materialists.
I loved Celine Song’s Past Lives. It moved me, the sadness of knowing that there was a great guy out there, but the timing was wrong and you had already moved on with someone else. I haven’t seen Song’s The Materialists, but I saw that there was a lot of controversy with the story and which guy was ultimately “chosen” by the heroine. Basically, Dakota Johnson has to choose between Pedro Pascal’s character, a wealthy man who has his life together and is “perfect on paper” versus her ex, played by Chris Evans, who is a broke, struggling actor/waiter in his late 30s. Well, Celine Song is still talking about the film and why she’s exploring these particular issues. She ended up defending the choice made by Dakota’s character, which is to go back to the imperfect love with a broke-ass man. Celine’s comments were really thought-provoking.
Materialists filmmaker Celine Song is clapping back at those who have described her film as “broke man propaganda.” During a recent interview with Refinery29, the writer-director behind the romance movie responded to the “very cruel” commentary surrounding the relationship between Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans‘ characters, Lucy and John.
“I think that it doesn’t make me laugh, because it really is disappointing to me,” Song said. “I think that there is a very real confusion about feminism and the history of feminism. Through intersectionality, so much of feminism has been about anti-corporate and anti-capitalist and, of course, it was always at the forefront of fighting capitalism, so I’m very concerned about the way that we talk about people who are poor.”
“The thing that’s very important to me is to stress that poverty is not the fault of the poor. And I think that given that, it is very brutal. I find it very cruel to talk about John as a character who loves Lucy, and who is a beautiful character being played beautifully by Chris, to talk about him in such cruel terms as ‘broke boy’ or ‘broke man.’”
“There is something about the classism of that, the kind of hatred of poverty, the hatred of poor people, who, again, it’s not their fault that they’re poor,” Song added. “I think that is a very troubling result of the way that the wealthy people have gotten into our hearts about how it’s your fault if you’re poor, you’re a bad person if you’re poor. So it doesn’t make me laugh, actually…. It makes me feel very concerned that anybody would talk about my movie and my characters and to really think about it in such classist terms. The whole movie is about fighting the way that capitalism is trying to colonize our hearts and colonize love.”
The exploration of capitalism, love and feminism is interesting, and I understand her perspective – she wrote a story about a woman rejecting the capitalist influence on romance, the idea that you can create a list and pay a matchmaker to find a perfect-on-paper partner with no flaws. But feminism is tied to capitalism in other ways – women in the workforce, women buying their own homes, women’s economic independence has also influenced romance/dating/marriage. Women no longer need to be tied to a man for financial security. Women have also seen how money affects relationships – if the woman is a higher earner, historically, their partners feel emasculated. Women also resent the “broke men” who leech off of them and their financial security. It’s simplistic to say that romance and capitalism need a divorce, and that women should just see the man and not his finances. But I respect Song and the story she told, and it’s a really nuanced conversation to have.
this rules pic.twitter.com/QIN0XMHAL6
— tyler “llewyn” taing (@tylerllewtaing) August 10, 2025
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Celine Song arriving at the 2024 EE BAFTA Film Awards on Sunday 18 February 2024 at Royal Festival Hall, London. .,Image: 848365574, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Julie Edwards/Avalon.Red, Model Release: no, Credit line: Julie Edwards/Avalon
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- 96th Academy Awards Arrivals at the Dolby Theater on March 10, 2024 in Los Angeles, CA,Image: 905891084, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Celine Song, Credit line: Nicky Nelson/Wenn/Avalon
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- Guests attend the UK Gala Screening of Materialists at the Picturehouse Central,Image: 1027862127, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Pictured: Celine Song, Credit line: Phil Lewis/Wenn/Avalon
She’s right about the way capitalism erodes people’s view. Judging people for how much money they make and even what they do for a living is a lot of why this country is in the toilet. But the Chris Evans character got his own way much of the time and in ways refused to grow up. That’s a different matter all together.
But he realized that too. He was going to stop basically trapping himself and was going to be moving on to picking up more catering gigs and whatnot rather than thinking of that work as something he had to do while waiting for acting gigs. He was angry at himself in the movie for having trapped himself.
Gosh, what a thoughtful and moving response to that question. I don’t know why but I found myself tearful listening to her.
Don’t bother watching. I couldn’t get through it. The dialog was awful! Characters didn’t talk like real people, everything out of her mouth was a Ted talk on dating. An emotionless, monotoned Ted talk. I usually watch to the end even if I don’t like but this was just boring and lacking in emotion. The writing kind of pissed me off!
Agree about the dialog. No one felt like a real person, no one reacted like a real person. It felt like the outline of a movie waiting for a script doctor to come do a polish on the language, but instead, they just decided to shoot it.
Love Pedro and Chris but not a dan of Dakota.
Btw Pedro was a struggling actor/waiter for years until his big break with Game of Thrones.
When Joseph Quinn recently answered that its usually Pedro who pics up the bill after a dinner with the Fantadtic Four cast Pedro said he’s just doing what people did for him for years.
Okay if Celine Song doesn’t like the word broke, what about lazy man propaganda? The main issue with the character in the film was a lack of drive, as well as his low bank account. Chris Evans was broke AND unreliable AND always put himself first. Like a bad personality and broke? Pick a struggle.
Honestly, it felt like all the characters were written to be at least 10 years younger than the actors cast in this movie. Because, as a woman in my 30s, my friends and I are not letting shiftless men with no plan keep ruining our lives like we did in our 20s. I wish she had used some of these thoughts in the movie, but it just feels like a lot of justification that did not make it onto the screen.
Aahh thank you. I agree completely. Let me add that I could be ok with earning more than my partner, if he can handle it with maturity. That’s nit my experience though. In my late 20s my then live in BF completely fell apart when my salary surpassed his and eventually left me. Now in my 40s after a long period of prioritizing my kids my career is picking up pace and I started earning more than my husband. I can already sense that he is not comfortable with it and I’m trying to figure out how to handle this situation.
It’s sort of like the “women only want tall guys” thing. IME while “tall” might be nice for a lot of people, the issue isn’t that women aren’t willing to date, be with shorter guys. It’s that women don’t want to date, be with shorter guys who have a chip on their shoulder about being short and – bonus! – are going to cop an attitude, make it the woman’s problem. (sulking, insisting she wear flats, imagining other people are judging, your lady has ulterior motives or one foot out the door because of your stature)
Sure, all else being equal, it’s nice to date, be with a guy that’s not poor. But it’s not that all women only want to date rich dudes. It’s that many women don’t want to date, be with guys who have an attitude, ego issue about their lack of funds, lower earning power and -bonus!- make it a problem for the woman they’re with. Ie make it a *thing* THEY have to figure out how to handle.
It’s like, dudes, don’t let your ego, attitudes, shoulder chips, internalized narrowly defined masculinity be something that drags down your partner and tanks the relationship. Grow up, get therapy to deal with your issues and show up – be a true, supportive partner with your partner in whatever way you can.
TLC said it best in ‘No Scrubs.’ Don’t settle for some scrub man.
@North of Boston – thank you, very well put. These are issues of character – not the physical height or the paycheck, but how the man deals with it.
Mileage may vary because I didn’t seem his as unreliable. At least the present day version. He was there for her throughout the movie including when she needed it the most. Both emotionally when they were on the phone and physically when she was with her client who was attacked. He literally spent the night on the cement stoop while she was with her.
I thought the movie showed he was moving forward, getting more stable catering work (which can pay well in nyc) too. If he hadn’t grown and made the changes they wouldn’t have gotten together.
Even though Dakota Johnson’s character was *very* openly declaring her desire for a rich husband, it seemed to me that, for her, Chris Evans’ character won out in the emotional safety department. From his first scene, he demonstrated that he knew her well. And when she called him upset about something (and she was still with Pedro Pascal’s character, if I remember correctly), he stopped working to take her call and listen to her. I hope that Chris’ character continued with the life and career changes that he said he would make at the end of the film, otherwise he and Dakota’s character won’t live happily ever after.
I didn’t need any spoilers or even to watch the film to predict that she probably picked the ‘sweet guy who has no money’. This is a romcom. That is what happens.
It’s actually not a romcom at all. More a rom dramedy. And he had rough edges like Dakota. None of the three leads were perfect.
Pretty much the only thing my partner and I have consistently argued about over the 20 years of our relationship is money. We met when we were postgraduate students, and for a long time while we were trying to establish our careers only one of us was working at a time, we were always short of money, and we were always stressed about it. We had to rent crappy flats, live apart for long stretches of time because that was where the work was, put up with family pestering us about why we weren’t getting married/having kids/going on holiday etc. Even now we’re both working with good salaries, we are tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, behind where we could/should have been, and we’re dealing with the global recession and economic crisis as well. To say that you shouldn’t be concerned with money, or shouldn’t let it influence your decisions, is very naive. And from my understanding of this film, it’s not like the only thing Pedro’s character had going for him was his wallet. It’s not an Indecent Proposal situation (and even there, Robert Redford’s character wasn’t lacking in other qualities, even if the premise is gross). If you’re willing to overlook lack of money/immaturity/lack of direction etc in your 20s because someone’s hot, that’s no big deal. But later in life? No way. Hotness fades, and someone’s great personality gets ruined by the stress that poverty causes.
Everyone’s main criticism of this movie was that she didn’t do something new in romance movies or even books. The heroine always chooses the blue collar, normal guy and never gets with the rich guy unless it’s some 50 Shades mess.
And as someone who saw this movie. It wasn’t good. She doesn’t set up that relationship between Dakota and Chris at all and all we see is them unhappy and fighting. And the man had zero development between the time they broke up and got back together. To me that ending was a foreshadowing of her having the marriage her parents did which she didn’t want.
“ if the woman is a higher earner, historically, their partners feel emasculated. Women also resent the “broke men” who leech off of them and their financial security.” This line – you’re so close but missing the point. In a true equal society women wouldn’t resent their partners who make less and the partner who makes less wouldn’t be jealous of the women earning more. This is ALSO a symptom of capitalism and misogyny. I love that Celine is talking about these issues.
“Women also resent the “broke men” who leech off of them and their financial security.”
Relying on women for financial security is not why women resent those men. It’s because those men want placate their bruised egos by making the woman feel less than. That they expect her to make herself smaller so they can feel superior. Even when it’s not said out loud that’s what they do and I wouldn’t encourage any woman to pay the emotional price of propping up a man’s ego because she outearns him. I sound jaded even to my own ears but that’s my only experience with men I and my friends/family have been in relationships with.
Exactly. It’s those situations where the women are making the money and paying for most things but at restaurants, they have to hand their partner their credit card so HE can hand it over to pay. That’s stupid.
Thank you. I was so annoyed by that line and her not even really doing a good job of articulating these issues. As a Black woman, I make more money than most of the men that live in my area. I would have to be with a guy that would not bothered by that. I have seen just two of my friends in real life who have supportive husbands who don’t care that their wives out-earn them, but also are supportive. Celine Strong could have really gotten into that whole thing and turned the rom-com on it’s head, but she did something that has been done to death since the freaking rom-com came into existence.
My only issue with the movie is that Dakotas acting was monotone and wooden and Chris’ character was actually a bad boyfriend, not “just broke”. Pedro’s character was actually thoughtful and kind as well as financially secure. It just didn’t make sense to me. And also who puts a SA storyline in the middle of a romcom!? Was out of left field and very weird. I think at the end of the day it didn’t seem like a movie that loved or even believed in love. Which is sort of the point of a romcom.
I’d argue Song doesn’t believe in romance as a stand alone genre – her need to put sad or dramatic plot lines next to the love story an admission that she doesn’t believe the romance can stand alone and be taken seriously. A romantic comedy can have thoughtful undertones, but The Materialists feels more like a drama masquerading as a romcom.
A more interesting story is examining the reality that women can’t always have it all. Love isn’t really a rational experience but capitalism requires us to make rational decisions about love if we want it to result in a stable home and family. If the story had been about a woman making a choice between a passionate love and financially convenient love that had the potential to become something deeper, that would’ve been more subversive story telling. Those are more emotionally complex stakes. Alternatively, perhaps, Chris Evans character had cleaned up and gotten a stable job – but lost some of the passion and creativity that she loved in him in the process. There’s your story about the costs of modern living on emotional satisfaction. There’s the ghost of capitalism in the intimacy of our beds.
I mean, maybe, but I find it pretentious and frankly misleading to pretend money isn’t and shouldn’t be a consideration in marriage in modern capitalism, not when the gender pay gap persists and when debt and financial irresponsibility is a very real obstacles to healthy, lasting marriages. The Materialists could have explored that in a thoughtful way, but I don’t feel it actually did. It feels more like a typical “love above all” romance, which is fine, but let’s not pretend that it’s not more than that.
Total flip of reaction to the Notebook story! Everyone loved her leaving her rich nice fiancee for poor guy who climbs ferris wheels!