The Materialists' Director Celine Song On Film's Ending

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Earlier this summer, director Celine Song released her sophomore movie, The Materialists, starring Dakota Johnson as Lucy, Pedro Pascal as wealthy financier Harry, and Chris Evans as struggling actor/ part-time waiter John.
In the film, Lucy is in somewhat of a love triangle with John, who is her ex-boyfriend, and charming Harry — but she ultimately ends up choosing John after he proposes to her in Central Park with a flower ring.
Celine previously opened up about her decision for Lucy to follow her heart over financial stability in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, where she explained: 'What's amazing about Pride and Prejudice is that the person who is going to pay off your debt and your family's debt is also going to be the love of your life. What an amazing fantasy, but we know in life, that's not necessarily true.''I think it's so much easier to be somebody who is cynical and materialistic about what we're looking for. I totally understand it. It's fun to be like: 'Well, who cares about love?'' she went on. 'But what I believe more than anything is that the fantasy of true love, the hope of it, the thing that's really hard and humiliating and embarrassing — it's the bravest thing you can do."
However, The Materialists' ending remains pretty divisive for many, with some going so far as to call it 'broke man propaganda' as they questioned Lucy's final decision.
And in a new interview, Celine expertly shut down this rhetoric as she bluntly admitted that she doesn't find the jokes surrounding her movie funny in any capacity.
While speaking to Refinery29, Celine was alerted to a viral Letterboxd review of the movie, with the journalist saying: 'I did read one Letterbox review comment that really made me laugh that said: 'Not Celine promoting broke men in this economy,' which really made me laugh. What do you think of that?'
But Celine was not amused, and remained deadpan as she replied: 'Thank you for asking me about it, I think that it doesn't make me laugh because it really is disappointing to me.'
'I think that there is a very real confusion about feminism and the history of feminism,' she added. 'Because 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 classism. So, I'm very concerned about the way that we talk about people who are poor.'
'I think the thing that's very important to me is to stress that poverty is not the fault of the poor,' Celine continued. 'And 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, and to talk about him in such cruel terms as 'broke boy' or 'broke man.''
'I think that 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,' she went on. 'I think that 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, and you're a bad person if you're poor.'
'So, it doesn't make me laugh, actually, just makes me feel very concerned that anybody would talk about my movie and my characters, and then to really think about it in such classist terms,' Celine concluded. 'The whole movie is about fighting the way that capitalism is trying to colonize our hearts and colonize love.'
This clip recently went viral on X as people praised Celine for the way that she expertly shut down the discourse while refusing to indulge the interviewer's question, leading to a wider conversation about how inane modern day interview culture has become.
One person tweeted the footage alongside the simple caption: 'this rules' on Sunday, and it has since been seen more than 18 million times, and racked up 10s of thousands of retweets, likes, and replies.One popular quote tweet reads: 'a lot to be said about interview culture now but it's actually rousing to see a filmmaker bucking the light tone of a prompt to defend how we see and talk about the poor. I don't know if I've ever seen a big filmmaker say 'being poor is not the fault of the poor' like this.''so much of movie promotion has become a humiliation ritual the last few years, and I loveeee that she's refusing to play ball. Artists are entitled to take their own work seriously!' somebody else wrote. 'a great example of leveraging the role you have as the person being interviewed to steer the conversation towards something meaningful and worthwhile. this is clearly a serious person tired of unserious questions. i'll have to watch her movies,' another added.While one more reasoned: 'I get the interviewer was trying to be lighthearted but like you showed her a post that was blatant misinterpretation of her movie! i'm glad she was honest and said this disturbs her.'And another wrote: 'This is immaterial to my thoughts on Celine Song or her work but I think more filmmakers, actors, whoever should keep responding seriously to these glib attempts at viral bullshit.'