Money On Film: Materialists

0:06Hello and welcome to Money on Film. I'm Felix Salmon of Bloomberg. I'm here with Nadira Goffe. I'm a culture writer at Sleep. Hi. And we have already talked about one of my favorite movies, which is Margin Call. This is a whole series where we talk about the sort of intersection of money and business and finance and that kind of stuff with film. and so next time we're going to talk about Spirited Away which is an amazing movie and has all manner of economic lessons to it but this time when people think about money the first thing they think about is what's in my bank account and what does that mean for my conception of myself and so we are going to watch a terrible movie Yeah, it's not the best movie ever made I can certainly say that It's not the worst movie ever made.

1:00We also have a film, if you go back into the Slate Money archives, we have a podcast where Taffy Brodus at Akhna tried to make me watch Made in Manhattan. And that is a genuinely terrible movie. Not too much on J-Lo, but it could have used some work. But even if we're talking about the star redeems the film, which she doesn't in that movie, Pedro Pascal is better at that than J-Lo is. Well, yeah. Well, I have some criticisms of what the movie does to my dearly beloved Pedro Pascal. Making him six feet tall. Well, making him somewhat pathetic. But if you're wondering what we're talking about. What are we talking about?

1:40And why I would ever, ever say the words Pedro Pascal and pathetic in the same sentence, which are not my personal feelings, but feelings that this movie tries to impart. It is because we were talking about Celine Song's materialists, her very controversial, oft-debated 2025, A24, rom-com question mark, drum question mark. There's like a couple of mildly full-flatty comedic moments. It's not a comedy. It is, I guess, what happens when A24 tries to make a rom-com but removes the combat and then adds in a whole bunch of weird auteur-ish stuff to make it more highbrow. Yeah, but before I get into my feelings about this movie, if you would like to see my feelings about this movie on my face, and my feelings about this movie are very strong, then I'm happy to let everyone know that we are currently filming in Slate Studios.

2:35We are on the YouTubes. We have a three-camera setup. Exactly. So you can find us on YouTube, but you can also find us anywhere where you usually get your podcasts. This is not what you would call a complex plot, but for the sake of just getting it out of the way, what is the plot? So Materialist is a movie about Dakota Johnson wearing incredible, beautiful trench coats. And also in this movie, she is a matchmaker in New York City, and she is caught in a love triangle between her ex-boyfriend, who is played by Chris Evans, who is a sort of down on his luck, wannabe actor, sometimes cater waiter.

3:14to fill his pockets as he fills his time between auditions. And then also her other paramour, who is Pedro Pascal, who works in private equity and is very fancy and very rich. So in a classic rom-com, we can all see this coming from a million miles away, right? You have the poor but lovely Chris Evans guy is in love with Dakota Johnson. And also the sort of slightly mustache-twirling billionaire Pedro Pascal guy is in love with Dakota Johnson and she's tempted by all of the money and the glamour, but ultimately she decides that she needs to follow her heart and that money can't buy happiness and that she winds up with Chris Evans at the end.

3:55That's not exactly what happens in this film, not least because one of the major plot points of this film, which has very few plot points, is the great realisation towards the end of the second act that Pedro Pascal is not in love with Dakota Johnson at all. And yeah, that's not really a love triangle. Like that entire line of the triangle with Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal is just a kind of whatever something, but not love. Yeah, an attraction triangle, a coupling triangle. So I think what is interesting about this movie in terms of other types of narrative triangles that you might see in other romance movies is that the main character, Dakota Johnson, is someone who is in many ways obsessed with money.

4:47You know, her parents had a sort of rocky relationship because of arguments about financial differences or financial instability, rather. And her previous relationship with the Chris Evans character also imploded because of her, because he's broke and she didn't like that, which is something that she open-throatedly says. And so she is very focused on money. And as someone who is a matchmaker, she deals almost every day in trying to figure out couples where money is one of the main concerns, right? So she sees love and marriage. Well, she specifically sees marriage as an agreement, as a deal, as, I don't know, some sort of financial investment as well as other types of investments that are divorced from emotion.

5:31And throughout most of the movie, she goes around seeing couplings as such, as agreements, as decisions, and not necessarily as emotionally backed choices or predicaments, right? And that is an opinion that sort of changes throughout the film. My biggest complaint about this movie is I think all of the things it's trying to say about dating in our current era, about money, about living in New York City while being paid about 80K before taxes, which is something that she says, but then also has a really fancy line of suitcases and like all of this sort of like designer clothing. I'm like, what's the truth?

6:17Someone didn't do their research there. But outside of all those sort of really valid things that I think are interesting to tackle, I think love triangles always or coupling triangles, whatever we're calling this, always have a really hard job to do. They have to, especially when this is the setup, they have to convincingly portray the rich suave guy as not as worthy of being the one that's chosen in the end as the sort of schleppy ex-boyfriend, right? Right. And this movie does not do a good job of that specific thing. I think it's it tries its hardest to cast Pedro Pascal as someone who is shiny on the outside, but kind of hollow in the middle.

7:03And that being, I don't know, an actually good factor for Dakota Johnson's character's decision in choosing Chris Evans, which I think, as we sort of already said, is not necessarily a spoiler. Like, you know how that's going to go because that's how all of these movies go. Right. But I'm not actually convinced by the end of this movie. No, it's deeply unconvincing. It's unconvincing. It's deeply unconvincing for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that, yeah, as you say, like the whole premise of the movie is that she understands, not just on a personal but also on a professional level, that having a certain degree of financial compatibility is a prerequisite for marrying someone.

7:48and then she throws that away for no reason at all there's like literally literally no reason for her to throw that away one of the things that really annoys me about hollywood in general and this is not just true of this movie and made in manhattan it's true of like every single rom-com in the history of Christendom, basically, which is this idea that the way you can prove that you are truly in love with someone is by giving up a bunch of money. And that like, oh, on the one hand, I could have had all this money, but in fact, what I value more than even money is you. And so now we're going to get married.

8:28And this kind of, it's a tired, stupid trope. And if we're going to get rid of tired, stupid tropes, as this film kind of like half wants to do. Like that should be the first one to throw out, especially given, and we have to mention this, that there is zero chemistry between Chris Evans and Dakota Johnson. I mean, you do not believe for a minute that they see anything in each other at all. So like there's no, like when they get together at the end, do you feel happy about it? No, you just feel like, why? What? No. Yeah, and there's this line that Dakota Johnson says when she's rejecting Pedro Pascal, who, once again, I cannot stress how nothing burger of a character they try and make him, but he's still so handsome and charming that it's just kind of like, just choose the private equity guy.

9:20Like, his apartment is insane. Anyway, so, yeah, so she has this line that she says where, you know, she says something, like, he says something like, you said marriage is a business proposition or whatever, and she says, yeah, but love still has to be on the table. and I just would have really preferred a movie with a character who didn't come to that conclusion because we have enough like you were saying we just have enough of that and I think what was so fascinating about her character as it started is her decision to divorce herself from that notion right like I actually would like to see a movie about someone contending with dating in the modern era where they actually decide like screw love we don't need love I'm out here for security So yeah, where was Dakota Johnson's Long Dark Night of the Soul, where she was like, this is my dream.

10:11This is what I've always wanted. I finally managed to bag myself a unicorn, and he has all of the money, and he's kind, and he comes from a good family, and he can look after me. And I get these 19-foot ceilings and everything I ever wanted. But on the other hand, something, something, love, something. That scene is not in the movie. All we get is her kind of looking at his shins and getting out of bed and saying, I don't want to go to Iceland. And you're like, what? The context there is that one of the sort of running jokes, but also semi plot lines of this movie is that there is a surgery that I think is real, maybe.

10:52I don't think they get a full six inches out of it. But I do think the surgery itself is real, where people, but mostly men, can pay to basically like have their legs broken and then in some ways extended so that they can become taller. Right. It's like a surgery that's supposed to permanently make them taller. And there is this, I don't know, it's mentioned at the beginning of the movie. And then there's this moment where you find out that Pedro Pascal has had that. and the whole point of I think it being revealed when it is revealed is that that isn't the thing that changes Dakota Johnson's mind.

11:25It just happens to happen at the same time that her mind is changed. Yeah, but we don't get the thing that does change Dakota Johnson's mind. I think there is another very, very key plot point here, which is that Dakota Johnson is very successful as a matchmaker. The movie starts with her colleagues throwing her a party because she's had nine successful marriages or something like that. and she sees herself as really good at what she does and she cares about her work in the way that anyone can care about being good at their job. And that is all going well until one of her clients sues the matchmaking company because she claims that the other client that Dakota Johnson had set her up with sexually assaulted her.

12:08And that is something that really takes a toll on Dakota Johnson. She feels her character feels a lot of responsibility for that outcome and for that choice. And I think we are supposed to believe that that is the sort of inciting incident that spurs her into thinking that she's been thinking about relationships a little bit too quantitatively instead of qualitatively. because if someone can check off all these boxes but still do something horrible or still mistreat you in some way, then maybe the boxes aren't worth it, right? Like, maybe the boxes are shit. But, like, for one thing, he wasn't checking any of the, like, the assaulter who we never see...

12:50Yeah. ...wasn't checking off those boxes at all except for by lying about them. Like, there was this line which, like, really confused me, which was in the movie, and I don't understand why it was in the movie, where Dakota Johnson is explaining to this client of hers who got assaulted that, like, well, he, you know, was making$200 ,000 a year or whatever. And then the client is, well, yeah, that was a lie too. As though, like, that just, you know, makes him even more horrible. But like, he didn't need to be lying about that, but they made him be lying about that for reasons that I don't understand.

13:24Yeah. And I also think that being a sort of catalyst for any decisions that Dakota Johnson makes in the future is really confused. It's not explicitly stated, and it's also kind of unclear what her takeaway from the situation actually is. We should also mention, by the way, and I think this is actually very crucial to watching this movie, is that to understand what is going on sort of in Dakota Johnson's mind requires on some level Dakota Johnson being able to act. Well, some say. But that is certainly an ancient proverb. And the one that I agree with, I think here's how I feel about that particular situation, because that was actually a huge bit of discourse, right?

14:13I think this is the perfect role for Dakota Johnson, because it is the perfect role for someone who is maybe not that good of an actress, because all she has to do is like fit into this very specific box and look chic as hell while doing it, right? But I think the movie tries to put so many more layers on this character than there need be. Like, I actually would have preferred for... But this is a Celine song movie. This is meant to be an A24 auteurist thing. This is meant to be something for actors. They have Pedro Pascal. This is Chris Evans also trying to demonstrate his acting chops, which it turns out he has none of, at least based on this movie.

14:51I like Chris Evans. I like him in this movie. I just don't think that the, I don't think this movie is really giving any of them much to work with.

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16:23Rates as of January 1st, 2026. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the Wallet app or card.apple.com. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch, terms and more at applecard.com. There's not a single complex character in the entire movie with the possible exception of Bedro Pascal. I was about to say, yeah. And then any chance that the movie takes of actually having him be complex, they totally nuke it. Like they nuke it so that he can remain this flat character because the only way you can have a convincing ending where Dakota Johnson chooses a broke Chris Evans over a rich Pedro Pascal is to make a rich Pedro Pascal something of a nothing burger of a character.

17:04So they nuke any sort of complex scenario that they can have with him or layers that they can have with him to the movie's total disservice, right? Also because it just doesn't pull it off. I would still choose Pedro Pascal in that situation. Right. And so what I wanted to talk about, now that we've got out of the way the fact that the movie isn't very good, is the interesting premise that we know, empirically speaking, that there is this thing called assortive mating. And that rich people tend to marry rich people and poor people tend to marry poor people. And that is actually one of the reasons why inequality tends to get worse over time, because you don't get that thing that you used to be able to get where like rich men would marry, you know, stereotypically their secretaries.

17:58And then you would get like families mixing between classes. Families don't like professional men now marry professional women in a way much, much more than they ever used to. And that is keeping the classes separate. and there's a whole bunch of reasons for that and i think they're interesting reasons and what this movie does is it boils all of those very interesting reasons down to an incredibly facile thesis that marriage is some kind of a contract between rich people and therefore it makes sense to be financially compatible or something like it takes something it takes a very interesting phenomenon and makes and turns into a dumb like tick of a box of a cash like that's not why a sort of mating happens you know the reasons why a sort of mating mating happens are cultural and they have to do with increasing amounts of like class stratification in the country and the way that people talk to each other and shared cultural references and a whole bunch of stuff that like nowhere appears in this movie and instead they're just like well obviously unless you make blah blah blah and it's like that's not why you know but is that why people in new york who have tiny dogs hire matchmakers maybe maybe and i think i i really wish that the the movie either was more specific about the demographic it is talking about or was more open to nuance right But it ends in this sort of weird place where it is simplistic, but also trying to be a little bit wide serving.

19:40And it just doesn't land anywhere. And it also isn't relatable. And once again, neither is her life. She's making 80K before taxes and dresses like that, has an apartment that looks like that, no roommates, and also really expensive luggage. I'm like, girl, I don't even, what's going on here? I'm confused. And so one of the interesting things that the film doesn't go into is that if you are wealthy on the level of a Pedro Pascal, who is a private equity executive and is worth hundreds of millions of dollars at the very least, one of the things you worry about when you start thinking about getting married is like, what happens to this money is half of my is like half of this money going to go to someone do i know them very well um can i trust them he is preparing to propose marriage to dakota johnson who's picked out a ring and everything without first talking to her about like all of the boring but really important financial things that you need to talk about before you get to that point.

21:00And on some level, she is exactly the right person to talk to about it because she understands that, you know, this is a contract and she'll be like, yes, I'm OK with this. I'm not, you know, and I can sign this kind of a prenup or whatever. But none of the like that fear of the rich that the person they're dating might secretly be a gold digger and just in it for the money is exactly the number one fear that should be going through his head with this woman who has evidenced zero evidence that she even likes him, let alone loves him. No, I think she even says in the beginning, like, I'm most attracted to the way you picked up the check.

21:33You know what I mean? I think it's what I actually kind of admire about the relationship is that at the beginning, she's very clear that she is attracted to him because of his money. And it's very clear that he doesn't care about that because he sees her as someone. Yeah, what does he see in her? I think he says something like, I want someone who knows how the game is played or who knows how the world works. Or someone who, you know, someone that he can strategize with, build a life with or something like that. And he specifically says, I'm not just looking for the prettiest girl who likes me back, right?

22:05But do I wish that we saw them have more real conversations, like you're saying? Yeah, I just wish that there was a lot more real in the movie more generally. Just, like, at all. And also, does she have friends? No, none. Yeah, like, I just, I'm so, there's so much more that this movie could have talked about. And so many different aspects, I think, about dating at that age in New York City, in any city. and also being in this sort of weird spot where you are consistently fraternizing with people who have a ton more money than you, but you don't have as much and you're still trying to impress them or you're still put in spaces where you have to impress them, right?

22:44And I think that all of those things are so interesting and the movie talks about none of them. And I don't know why. I don't really know what the sort of, what is the takeaway from this movie? What did you take away from this movie? A24 shouldn't try rom-coms? No. I mean, I don't know. As someone who loves, I love a rom-com. Love A24. And I love when auteurs decide to do more genre-based things, right? Like, I love, even if Marvel's The Eternals was awful, I still love that Chloe Zhao tried it. I still love that Ryan Coogler, you know, can make Fruitvale Station and also Black Panther. But, so I don't think Celine Song should stop.

23:25I don't think A24 should stop. But I do think that it needed another pair of eyes. It needed another pair of eyes from someone who is really well-versed in the, like, Nora Ephron catalog and can say, here are the things that you need to include. The sort of interstitial bits that actually make up a really good romance movie. Like, the small conversations that they have that you needed to include because it feels kind of empty. No, this needed to be like a Mike Nichols movie rather than a song movie. Yeah. But I don't know. It was funny sometimes. I like the needle drops. The needle drops. There were a couple of good needle drops.

24:07The Republican lesbian was a good one. Yeah. But yeah, as a movie about money, I mean, like you were saying, like I think we've been saying this whole time, there are so many different conversations in relationships of any type, but especially romantic that you should be having about money or that you will have or could have about money. And there are so many considerations, I think, in dating today about money. All right. So I need to ask you just to sort of, you know, tie this in a little bow. As someone who has basically never dated. Yeah. It sucks, you know. Yeah. I feel like I'm missing out here.

24:47No. Stay where you are. You're in a comfy little box. It's bad out here. What's your personal sort of rule of thumb when it comes to the income of the people you date? I don't have one. Maybe I should. But no, I have seen so many relationships that are lovely between people who have a lot of money and people who don't have any money and people who don't have any money who marry someone who has a lot of money. and they all, all of the ones that survived started based on something entirely different. Like, you know, they started because of a mutual love of something or dislike of something, proximity, chemistry, anything that doesn't have to do with money.

25:35And I think that I'm always just sort of thinking about all the other things. It doesn't mean that money's not important, but I think it's something you can work out or work towards or work through. and I wish that this movie showed any bit of that. Oh, which is as good a place as any. So date me, but especially if you're rich. Thank you. Yes. If you're Pedro Pascal and you're listening to it. Date Indira. She's a catch. And also, obviously, you're single now because you just got dumped by Dakota Johnson. Exactly. And that's real. We still have spirited away to go, which is going to be fantastic.

26:11But for the time being, thanks for watching or listening, whichever way you do it. Thanks to Andrew Harding for arranging all of this thing and bringing us together like a matchmaker. Yeah. I mean, he was kind of the matchmaker. Oh, he's our Dakota Johnson. He's our Dakota Johnson. Thanks, Andrew. I want to see you in a really lovely trench coat. We would also like to thank Michael Phillips for producing the video. He's behind all of these things. You can't really see him, but he's here. We would like to thank Benjamin Frisch for producing the audio and Merit Jacobs for engineering. So yeah, I'm Felix Salmon.

26:45I'm Nadeir Gough. And we'll be back with a dive into the wonderful spirit world of Spirited Away.