'Materialists' filmmaker Celine Song on being critical, not cynical about romance in movie with Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal

Yahoo

14-06-2025

Celine Song's "Materialists" is a unique take on the rom-com, a film that really breaks down the fantasy of the genre. Starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, it's unlike any other romance movie you've seen before.
Speaking to Yahoo Canada Toronto, Song talked about the "dehumanization" and "commodification" of dating. Additionally, she spoke about how her cast was able to resonate with being "merchandise" to be "sold for the highest price."
I'm probably not someone you want to date because the next person I date I'm gonna marry.
Are you hitting on me?
I think it would be really easy to make something like this really cynical about love that would be like a really easy road to go down, but what you do is really play with like these fantasies that we get to see in rom-coms and these fantasies that we have about love life and what did you think about just in terms of being able to be critical but not being cynical?
Well, I think that that really is at the heart of like what it's like to love in the modern world.
In general, I feel like that contradiction is a part of like all of our lives because there are so many reasons to be cynical and there's so and it's easy to be cynical and I think that it's kind of like we're surrounded by it and it's uh and it's cooler to be cynical.
So I think there's such a pool to think of love in a cynical way, but I think that on the other hand, there is this a very powerful thing that is an ancient mystery.
That has been something that uh you know they say it's uh makes life worth living right there's so much of it when it comes to love and the power of love it's the one that endures and that's gonna be a part of us as the human beings for the rest of the rest of the human beings so I think it really 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, right?
So I think that it really came from the necessity of that and it's the way that, you know, and I think depending on who's watching the movie we're gonna have a different relationship to the it's cynicism and it's romanticism.
I think when we kind of see without spoiling what happens in the movie but see something, you know, really tragic happen with Lucy's clients, but I do think that.
As a basic concept, the take the second that you start kind of dehumanizing things, tragic consequences are going to happen, which is what we see and what did you just think about in terms of being able to really use that moment to kind of be that reflection of the kind of consequences of dehumanization.
It is inevitable, right?
Because after all this like commodification or objectification of ourselves and each other at first it feels like, well we're just playing a game, right?
Well, in pursuit of love, but we're.
Actually just playing this game, this dating game, and then the truth is that once you have uh thoroughly commodified and objectified ourselves and each other and there's uh and part of that is going to inspire a lot of self hatred and a lot of self uh 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.
And then of course uh the end of objectification, any objectification of a person is uh going to be uh dehumanization.
And that's what you see happen to Sophie and Sophie is somebody who has the 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 in the face of this uh beautiful.
ancient, impossible mystery, this miracle, right?
It's the one way that the miracle still exists.
Love is a miracle.
So in the face of miracle, uh, in pursuit of 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.
Dakota is really interesting in this because I think she does such a phenomenal job just on kind of surface, but I think it's interesting watching her in this role of someone who is looking at kind of her self-worth and her self value because I think the thing that we all know walking into this is that she has a big family legacy in Hollywood and the the concept of having attention put on her.
What did you kind of talk to her about just in terms of getting into this character that is a bit of a chameleon?
Well, I think that is exactly this she has uh I think that all of us understand this as a modern person as in like, well you're you're a woman on a job or you're sometimes 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 and realities for so many different people in your life and I think the question always comes well but then who am I?
What is the thing that I actually value and I think that's so important that what you're talking about when it comes to uh this idea uh that I'm not merchandise I'm a person, which is something that I think all actors understand because so much of their work is their humanity, right?
And you just get to the audience looks at their humanity.
On display, on screen, and then they of course will objectify, commodify and judge it, right?
They'll be like, they'll watch it on the phone, they'll be like, uh, you know, or like, good, you know, whatever it may be.
And I think that all of Dakota, Chris and Pedro, they all understand in their own way what it's like to feel like merchandise, as you can imagine.
So when the conversation about the movie with them is about how they're not merchandise but they're people and I was of course meeting them as people.
Part of that is that you know like they understand and feel passionate about the movie uh from the get go because they understand that it's their world and I think that you're pointing to exactly the thing that is something that Dakota and I were talking about so much we were talking about how yeah but uh the surfaces, the the way that it's all seems there's a way that it all gets packaged into a thing that people can buy and consume and we turn ourselves into merchandise right and so that we can get sold for the highest price.
Right, and of course that's where all the Botox and all the way that we are supposed to improve our value and I think that that was really at the center of what Dakota and I talked about, but the guys too guys understand so completely it's like to feel like a merchandise like you know Chris Chris or Pedro, um, there's a Chris and Pedro the merchandise, right?
And then of course there's Chris and Pedro, the people, and every day, uh we're showing up to work, all four of us, uh talking about the people.
The persons that we are, tell me a little bit about the collaboration with your cinematographer because I think that I love the, the kind of visual language of this film.
What's amazing about working with Shabbi Krishna, my, uh, DP, is that, well, he and I, we worked on past lives together, which was the one other movie I made was my first movie.
And uh, so because we already made a movie together and that collaboration was so amazing that my second movie we already.
How to share language.
So my one of my favorite things about uh making this movie was to shortlist with Shabier.
We were talking through the entire movie and we made it in our minds uh visually already before we even uh rolled on day one.
So I think that, you know, like we're and we're also dreaming it together in that way.
We're talking about what the story is, what the focus is, and what I really love most about working with Shai.
is that the storytelling is always going to be the um 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 uh getting the prettiest shot.
It's always gonna be about, yes, but what's happening with the character?
And of course the character is, of course the three people on the poster, but it's also everybody else and it's also background, but it's also New York City.
And it's really about also capturing the city that uh we all love um just as a way to really uh reveal it and to really show it.
And I think so much of the conversation about how to capture it visually is about the revelation.
And uh the way that we love it and liking a liking a thing and loving a thing is a different thing, right?
Like uh loving a thing is also about loving the uh the darkest corners of it too, and that also applies to my characters, you know, the way that sometimes we wanna uh 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.