Ben O’Shea-Materialists: There’s Not Much Rom And There’s Not A Lot Of Com.

Our movie connoisseur Ben O’Shea was in the studio with Clairsy & Lisa to review Materialists. With an all-star cast of Pedro Pascal, Chris Evans and Dakota Johnson, the film is not without its flaws including the choice to make Pedro Pascal’s character out to be a less appealing romantic option. WHAT?!? Lisa asked the big question, how many ‘not exactly Sophie’s Choices’ did he give the movie?

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Great per flick with Benosh. Good morning, Ben, good morning.
Brought us today Pedro Pascal. Yeah, yeah, I'm just that's it,
that's undone. Yeah, the Internet's boyfriend, Pedro Pascal is so
hot right now. Everyone loves Pedro and so he is
one of a love triangle basically with Chris Evans and

(00:23):
Dakota Johnson in this new film Materialists. Now, before I
get into this film, it's normally maybe I wouldn't go
into the director straight away, but I think it's important
because the director of this film is Selene's song Who.
For people who are not familiar with her, she is
the Korean Canadian slash American director behind Past Lives, a
film from a couple of years ago that was also

(00:45):
a love triangle based on her real life story of
growing up in Soul, having a childhood sweetheart, moving to America,
marrying an American, and then her childhood sweetheart rocks up
and it's kind of a you know, awkward kind of
situation like did she make did she make the right decision? Well,
you know, kind of a sliding doors thinks about what
might have been. And so that film was incredible, emotionally devastating.

(01:09):
It was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. She
was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, So two time
Oscar nominee for her first film. So Selene's Song hit
the ground running as a filmmaker, and so there was
going to be a lot of attention around what she
did next. And so people might look at materialists and
certainly at the trailer and go okay, So the director
of this Best Picture nominee has done a generic rom com.

(01:34):
It does kind of feel like a commercial sellout. But
the problem is it's not, and it's kind of it's
not art house either. It's in between. She wrote the
film not as you know, an attempt to do something
more mainstream. She actually wrote it while she was waiting
for Past Lives to hit the cinema, so she didn't
even know Past Lives was going to be successful when

(01:55):
she wrote this movie. It was also based on something
in her real life. She worked as a match maker
in New York for six months and in this film,
Dakota Johnson plays a matchmaker in New York. And you
look at the trailer and you go, this is a
classic rom com, but that there's not much calm, and
there's also not a lot of rom it's really a movie.
It's really a movie more about maths. It's mathematics. Oh yes, maths. No,

(02:21):
sounds weird, and it certainly doesn't sound very sexy when
you look at the poster and you've got Chris Evans
and Pedro Pascal and Dakota Johnson. Maths no, not that sexy.
But so basically, as a match maker, it really is
about a mathematical equation. You've got a weigh up variables
such as height, weight, age, income and determine a person's
worth and whether or not that's compatible with somebody else's age, weight,

(02:45):
and so on and so forth. That's not terribly romantic,
but that's the business of matchmakers because people come to
them and they say, look, I want to find my
significant other. And the matchmaker says, okay, what are you
looking for? And they're like, I'm looking, I'm looking. I'm
looking for a guy that's six foot tall. He's got
to make more than two hundred grand a year. He's
got to be, you know, under thirty five, but over thirty.
So a lot of numbers get thrown out there and

(03:07):
then they start talking about, oh, well, you know, like
I want someone who's got a good sense of humor
and so on. But in this movie, it explores the
fact that, you know, people say, you know, I want
someone with a great personality that I can you know,
go to the movies with. But in reality, you know,
sometimes that's not actually what they're looking for, and people
are quite superficial and it's like, oh, that person's maybe
carrying a few extra pounds and that's that's a deal breaker.

(03:28):
And so this film is very unflinching and when it
examines those types of things. Dakota Johnson's the matchmaker, so
she's you know, very brutal in her calculations as she's
setting up these people and in her own love life.
It's a disaster really, she's kind of so's she sees
these people try and fail to find love and it's
put her right off. The whole concept can't take exactly

(03:51):
Council Eliza, and so then she meets then she meets
Pedro Pascal, a rich hedge fund type, like multi multi millionaire,
amazing apartment, and he's also and so the surprise surprise,
she goes, Oh, you know what I'm gonna I'm going
to get into the game. Here my mathematical matchmaking brain says,

(04:12):
you're a good one. You're a good match. I could,
I could farm you out to some of my clients,
but no, no, I'm going to keep you. Yes, so
she starts. She starts dating Pedro Pascal wife and everything.
Do you think, okay, Like, why is this movie? This
is the first twenty five minutes. Why do we need
to even continue anymore? This movie is over? Yeah, this
romance is done. But then of course Chris Evans, who

(04:35):
is her old boyfriend, struggling actor, a bit of a
no hoper, comes onto the scene, and then she's faced
with this choice. You know, Chris Evans might be the
love of my life even though he's got not a
cent to his name, and if I end up with him,
life is going to be difficult. Or do I use
my head and go and you know, use my brain

(04:55):
and on paper Pedro Pascal, who's perfect. The problem with
this film is it attempts to make super rich Pedro
Pascal the worst option, which makes zero sense. Like anybody
watching this movie is going like what the heck? Like
like go with Pedro exactly, And I think that is

(05:19):
part of the problem. Like Pedro, he's too perfect, and
their attempts to try and make him less than perfect
just just don't make sense. Find and and the and
part of that is, I guess you know, Celene script
gravitates so much towards Pedro Pascal unintentionally and intentionally that

(05:40):
when when Chris Evans starts to play more of a role,
it just doesn't make sense. Like you're just going like,
why would you? Because and it kind of you know,
Chris Evans's character this, you know, he's a waiter at
a catering company and acts in these little players and
there's nothing about him and lives in a sharehouse that's filthy.
There's nothing about it that is actually appealing. And he
and if you talk about, oh, he's the love of

(06:01):
my life, like you just don't even buy that. Yeah,
And then you've got the Dakotah Johnson of it all.
Who you know, she was in one of the worst
movies of all time in Madam Webb and obviously the
Fifty Shades series, And so the jury is out on
whether Dakotah Johnson is even much of a box office
draw card in the first place. I think she's okay.
This is probably the best performance of her career. The

(06:21):
good thing about this film Sillin Song's direction is incredible,
like the way the camera lingers on little details to
add intimacy to a scene. It's beautiful in many many ways.
It's more art house than rom com, but it's not
art house enough to appeal to the fans of Past Lives,
and it's certainly not rom common enough to appeal to

(06:42):
fans of those Matthew McConnaughey rom coms like. I've had
people message me who have seen this film and have
gone rom com fans, going, oh, you know, I just
didn't like it at all. And I totally expect that,
because you know, the trailer sells it as this lighthearted,
funny rom com romp. That's not what it is. Chris
comes in. I just wanted to get your vibe. Does

(07:02):
it start feeling a bit past lives at all? When
the past love comes in? My Past Lives is just
so much better. And there will be people who you'll
you'll know, people who watch this film and they will
try and convince you that it's amazing. They'll be trying
to convince themselves it's amazing because they're hoping it would be,
and they hope. It's more wishful thinking than anything else.
And you know, go watch Past Lives, all right. It's

(07:22):
like I tried to convince myself that The Mountain One
with interested it was good because it was terrible. Okay,
so how many know exactly Sophie's choices? Are you giving
its three? Three? It's not bad, It's like, it's not
a terrible film. Still, go and watch it, but just
don't expect it. Yeah, mid middling, so her next movie

(07:43):
will be critical. But definitely go watch Past Lives though,
because that is incredible. All right, thank you, thanks for
your honesty. There's always