'Materialists' filmmaker Celine Song: Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans understand 'feeling like merchandise'

Yahoo

15 hours ago

Materialists has easily been one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year, a romance film starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans, from filmmaker Celine Song, after the success of her directorial debut Past Lives. While many were quick to categorize the film as a love triangle rom-com, Song has so much more to say about love, romance and the commodification of the dating process that extends far past rom-com elements.
In Materialists Johnson plays New York City matchmaker Lucy, who's very skilled and knowledgable about navigating the game of dating for her clients, and how humans value themselves and others. At a wedding she meets Harry (Pascal), a "unicorn" bachelor who has all the things women look for — wealth, nice hair and an appropriate height. But Harry is more interested in dating Lucy, not her clients, which is complicated when Lucy's ex John, a broke struggling actor, is working as a waiter at the wedding and reconnects with Lucy.
What Song does throughout Materialists is really dismantle this idealized version of dating and falling in love that we've been fed in rom-coms, putting it into a real world context. Song skillfully evaluates how dehumanizing we've made the process of finding romance, but she still isn't presenting a story completely cynical about love.
"I think that really is at the heart of what it's like to love in the modern world in general," Song told Yahoo Canada in Toronto. "I feel like that contradiction is a part of all of our lives, because there are so many reasons to be cynical, and it's easy to be cynical, and ... we're surrounded by it and it's cooler to be cynical."
"There's such a pull to think of love in a cynical way, but I think that, on the other hand, there is this very powerful thing that is an ancient mystery, that has been something that they say it makes life worth living, right? ... When it comes to love and the power of love, it's the one that endures, and that's going to be a part of us as human beings. ... So I think that contradiction between the cynical and the romantic has to be a part of any story about love, especially if it intends to have something to say about the way we love in 2025. ... And I think depending on who's watching the movie, people are going to have a different relationship to its cynicism."
While Lucy is particularly successful in her matchmaking job, there is a shift when she finds out about sexual assault between her clients, specifically involving Sophie (Zoe Winters), who we see Lucy try to match from the beginning of the film.
Adding this element to the story, it's a reflection of how dehumanizing will inevitably have tragic consequences.
"After all this commodification, objectification of ourselves and each other, at first it feels like, well we're just playing a game," Song said. "And then the truth is that once you have thoroughly commodified and objectified ourselves and each other, part of that is it's going to inspire a lot of self-hatred and a lot of self-failure to accept oneself, which is something that Lucy deals with. Whether she's willing to face it in the beginning of the film or not."
"Any objectification of a person is going to be dehumanization, and that's what you see happen to Sophie. And Sophie is somebody who has probably the most important line in the whole film, where she goes, 'I'm not merchandise. I'm a person.' And to me, that's the running theme of the whole film. It's about how all of us in the face of love, ... this miracle, ... I think that you have to be able to say, well just for me to even dream of that miracle, I'm not merchandise. I'm a person."
That concept of being seen as a person and not merchandise does feel especially interesting with this cast. You have Johnson, who comes from a long line of Hollywood stars, and the corresponding interest and intrigue that comes from the public with that legacy. Then we also have Evans, who played Captain America, one of the most idealized characters ever created. And Pascal has quickly become a beloved sensation all over the world, with a massive fanbase.
"You're a woman on a job, or you're a woman in your private life, but so much of it, you have to be a chameleon as you move through these spaces, and you have to be different kinds of fantasies and realities for so many different people in your life," Song said. "And I think the question always comes ... but then, who am I? What is the thing that I actually value?"
"This idea that 'I'm not merchandise, I'm a person,' ... is something that I think all actors understand, because so much of their work is their humanity. ... The audience looks at their humanity on display, on-screen, and then they, of course, will objectify, commodify and judge it. ... I think that Dakota, Chris and Pedro, they all understand, in their own way, what it's like to feel like merchandise. So [conversations] about the movie with them are about how they're not merchandise, but they're people. And I was, of course, meeting them as people. Part of that is that they understand and [felt] passionate about the movie from the get go, because they understand it. It's their world."
Song spent a lot of time speaking to Johnson about being a person who is "packaged" as something "people can buy and consume" and can be "sold for the highest price."
"That's where all the Botox and all the ways that we are supposed to improve our value, and I think that was really at the centre of what Dakota and I talked about," Song said. "But the guys, too. The guys understand so completely what it's like to feel like a merchandise. ... There's a Chris and Pedro the merchandise, [and then] there's Chris and Pedro the people. And every day we're showing up to work, all four of us, talking about the people that we are."
Linked to the progression of the story is the film's appealing visual language, with Song collaborating with cinematographer Shabier Kirchner. The pair also worked together on Past Lives and as Song described, they went into Materialists with a "shared language," playing with some elements that really bring you back to classic rom-coms, while also utilizing New York City as an integrated part of each moment.
"One of my favourite things about making this movie was to shot list with Shabier. We were talking through the entire movie and we made it in our minds visually already, before we even rolled on day one," Song said. "We're also dreaming it together in that way, we're talking about what the story is, what the focus is."
"What I really love most about working with Shabier is that the storytelling is always going to be the way that the camera moves. The storytelling is going to be the focus of the camera, and then the way it moves, the way we lens, it's never going to be just about getting the prettiest shot. It's always going to be about, ... what's happening with the character? The character is, of course, the three people on the poster, but it's also everybody else, and it's also the background, but it's also New York City. And it's really about also capturing the city that we all love, just as a way to really reveal it and to really show it. ... Liking a thing and loving a thing is a different thing. ... Loving a thing is also about loving the darkest corners of it too, and that also applies to my characters, the way that sometimes we want to shoot my actors as these characters, in a way where we are in love with them and not just like them, but just to really see them fully."