Look at the Material: An Examination of Settling in 'Materialists'
****SPOILERS AHEAD**** sorry for being an AMC a-lister and seeing the movies!
I can remember it now: both my mom and friend echoing the same sentiment, "he checks all the boxes, but does he make you laugh?" Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is in the business of checking boxes—primarily for other people. At the wedding of one of her clients, she meets her match, a 6-foot-tall financier Harry ( Pedro Pascal) who checks all the boxes, but then their flirtation is interrupted by a familiar “Hey buddy” from Boston’s favorite son, John (Chris Evans). So begins the dance of the matchmaker trying to find her own match, lest she die alone and penniless - more on that later.
The trailer sets the movie up as a classic romcom, with ‘Material Girl’ booming as clips of women and men alike make demands on what type of person they want to date. Lucy herself is caught in a bind - does she run away with John, the ex who fumbled her, but maybe has changed, or Harry, the beautiful, charming catch? How the movie plays out is quite different, with glimpses of how you may never really know someone, and how someone can check all the boxes yet be a wrong fit, and how insecurity of self can lead someone back to familiar, no matter how detrimental it is to their future.
When Lucy consoles Sophie, Sophie admits that Lucy was her only friend. The same sentiment rang true for Lucy - no friends to mull over dates with, no couch to crash on in a pinch, no one to gab with about exactly how rich Pedro Pascal is.
When she told her unnamed coworker (hello, Bechdel test?) about her dating Harry, her coworker had no follow-up questions. Co-workers are famous for follow-up questions! Have you ever heated anything in the office kitchen without anyone asking any questions? I think not.
The lack of women friends forces the audience into the position of one, audible groans at the ending, gasps at the ring reveals* and thinkpieces after thinkpieces about whether or not she made the right choice - this one included. Maybe it’s reductionist to believe that this movie was ever about Evans vs. Pascal, but it misses the point that Austen understood exactly 250 years ago - marriage is an economic proposition, and that can include love. Women don’t have to settle for either/or.
Under those same terms that existed for centuries, it is hard not to think that being with John is a humiliation ritual for Lucy. He dramatically pulls away from her kiss, he believes that commercial work** is beneath him, even though he literally can’t afford that belief, and owns a car in a city with one of the best, most robust, and most affordable transit systems in the world. And it’s not because sitting through his warehouse play is a specific level of hell I’ve endured one too many times, but I couldn’t help but be embarrassed by him because the reveal that he is 37 and unchanged from when they initially broke up felt embarrassing. Even Mr. Darcy changes!
When I watched their scenes, they had the same fights, and even though John had nothing more to offer than he did when they were fighting over $25 in the middle of Midtown***, she still gets back to him because at least she knows they’ll still be fighting over the same $50 (adjusted for inflation).
This is not to say that the Lucy / Harry scenes were dripping with love and charisma either. That wasn’t for lack of Harry trying, though. He made her feel valuable. He took her to nice restaurants - something she expressed that she wanted in her flashback with John. He was going to take her to Iceland. She didn’t want to receive the type of love, or attention you could call it if you can’t call it love, that he wanted to give her. She kept downplaying her value, her intelligence and why he would want to be with someone ‘like her.’ After her third ‘why would you be with a girl like me?’ monologue, I would have left her at the restaurant. Girl, get up!
This is all to say with low self-esteem, no women friends, and never even attempting to have a European summer, the best of us would try to go back to their exes too. As modern day philosopher RuPaul tells us, “If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?” Lucy had a fractured relationship with herself. So maybe she shouldn’t have stayed with Harry. But she shouldn't be with John either.
Lucy’s perfect match is a weekly in-office therapist who specializes in money anxiety, self-esteem issues, attachment issues, and generational trauma. Then she should join a book club so she can read Untamed over a glass of wine and meet women friends.
*When Lucy found Harry’s ring in his Iceland go bag, a movie theatre audience member gasped and said “What is that?!” as if it were a jump scare or unknown item
** oh?? Beautiful, handsome Chris Evans is having such a hard time booking work as an actor. get real ! ! ! ! he literally was captain america
***$25 in Midtown, which is now in the congestion pricing zone, so in addition to inflation, you have to add the $9, now they’re fighting for over $34
Recent work: one of the reasons I’ve been so quiet on here is that I write for People! here are a few recent favorites (though I love all my articles equally, as if they were my children) did you just say ‘wig’ 7 years later, dear jeff probst, I met and spoke with pat benatar!
I spoke with an actual matchmaker: read it here!
its pride month! I spoke with a woman who healed her inner teen by going to queer prom