Loved this essay—I had the same thought about Lucy not having any friends after watching Materialists. I also thought it was so infuriating that Meg Stalter's character in Too Much had no friends. It was like watching GIRLS but if every episode and scene of the entire show had been about Hannah and Adam's codependent relationship (we needed Marnie, Jessa, Shoshana, and eventually Elijah to balance that show out and make it iconic). I would add the Sad Lit Girl trend here too. There are so many modern novels about young women (starting with A Year of Rest and Relaxation, but there are plenty of other examples) who hate themselves, are hyperfocused on romantic relationships, spend a lot of time in isolation, but don't have any friends. I've noticed that young women characters today are often written from a place of detachment: detached from their bodies, their own sexual desires, from the real world (hence the phones), from any sort of adult responsibility that might interrupt their self-absorption (getting a job, paying rent, showing up for a friend, taking care of a pet, dealing with family members). As a result, these characters begin to seem like they're the main character in a horror story about hyper-individualization and the lack of female autonomy in modern life. I saw someone make a TikTok about how Too Much is way more enjoyable if you watch it like a horror movie, where the main character ends up stuck in a marriage with a guy who will quickly become "too much" following their holy matrimony. Materialists also felt like it had elements of horror, and some viewers thought it was more about the horrors of modern dating than a rom-com one should aspire to.
Except that Dakota Johnson's character drinks Coke and beer, everything else is spot on. I have just sent my friend this article because it correlates so much with what we also discussed after the movie about Lucy: she has no friends and no personality. This was a brilliant read!
Great essay, what was maybe the bleakest part of Materialists to me was that even the supporting characters have no friends! When Kerry from Succession is scared of the stalker her only solution is to have her paid dating coach drive from 2+ hours away upstate, Pedro Pascal only hangs out w/ his brother, Chris Evans despises his roomates.
All rom-com characters are inherently beset by main character syndrome, but I think Materialists is of the time bc it provides a purely uncut version of it where alienation is so complete that even a romantic interest is at best, tolerated, and everyone else is hated. Dakota Johnson does not appear to really like either of these men. When Pedro Pascal says "I love you" and then Dakota Johnson replied "But I don't love you", the entire movie theater I was in burst out laughing. Of course she doesn't. The only thing she loves (including herself) is cheap beer
Contrast it to something like You've Got Mail which even the villain enjoys hanging w friends/family and working out w Dave Chapelle or Meg Ryan's genuine friendship with her coworkers/local kids. Bygone era.
I did like it tho when Celine Song slipped in that the family hedge fund was started by his MOTHER.
It's actually kind of a relief to see the gap that exists between life as portrayed on social media and the life that you see all around you when you get out into the real world.
"The most you can dream of is having some kind of mid-career job, falling in love with someone sort of likable, and endlessly working on yourself in the futile pursuit of self-optimization." — I've been seeing this in some contemporary fiction as well, and it's been depressing. This was a good reminder to seek the "personal," "individualistic," and "strange" in our own lives as well. Thank you for this insightful read!
Thanks for the considered analysis. I agree with it. It's interesting that the flaws of the films (frustrating characters, lack of friends to provide other voices, unhelpful messages) exist because the world they're reflecting is so flawed with broken societal interactions. To make a good, satisfying film, or TV series, about relationships in 2025 and beyond, perhaps filmmakers have to ignore the world around them and remake Friends or When Harry Met Sally (or other stories that feel alien now), or introduce the loss of wifi as a plot point that means people have to interact face to face with other humans?
"I thought about this, and about Milly, when I was watching Celine Song’s Materialists over the summer. It is a film that is so wholly drawn from an anxious TikTok scroll that it washed over me like a blurry, vaguely offensive haze. It seemed fitting that Red Scare’s Dasha Nekrasova was cast in it, in a totally unmemorable and unnecessary role, like a nod to the dating discourse obsessed viewer for whom it is intended. It feels like the artistic equivalent of a Milly, a piece of media that is entirely modeled off of things you might see in a glossy and that is strangely out of step with the actual world."
Loved this essay—I had the same thought about Lucy not having any friends after watching Materialists. I also thought it was so infuriating that Meg Stalter's character in Too Much had no friends. It was like watching GIRLS but if every episode and scene of the entire show had been about Hannah and Adam's codependent relationship (we needed Marnie, Jessa, Shoshana, and eventually Elijah to balance that show out and make it iconic). I would add the Sad Lit Girl trend here too. There are so many modern novels about young women (starting with A Year of Rest and Relaxation, but there are plenty of other examples) who hate themselves, are hyperfocused on romantic relationships, spend a lot of time in isolation, but don't have any friends. I've noticed that young women characters today are often written from a place of detachment: detached from their bodies, their own sexual desires, from the real world (hence the phones), from any sort of adult responsibility that might interrupt their self-absorption (getting a job, paying rent, showing up for a friend, taking care of a pet, dealing with family members). As a result, these characters begin to seem like they're the main character in a horror story about hyper-individualization and the lack of female autonomy in modern life. I saw someone make a TikTok about how Too Much is way more enjoyable if you watch it like a horror movie, where the main character ends up stuck in a marriage with a guy who will quickly become "too much" following their holy matrimony. Materialists also felt like it had elements of horror, and some viewers thought it was more about the horrors of modern dating than a rom-com one should aspire to.
Except that Dakota Johnson's character drinks Coke and beer, everything else is spot on. I have just sent my friend this article because it correlates so much with what we also discussed after the movie about Lucy: she has no friends and no personality. This was a brilliant read!
i think my brain just blocked out that detail because it’s such a heinous combination. thank you for reading!!
Great essay, what was maybe the bleakest part of Materialists to me was that even the supporting characters have no friends! When Kerry from Succession is scared of the stalker her only solution is to have her paid dating coach drive from 2+ hours away upstate, Pedro Pascal only hangs out w/ his brother, Chris Evans despises his roomates.
All rom-com characters are inherently beset by main character syndrome, but I think Materialists is of the time bc it provides a purely uncut version of it where alienation is so complete that even a romantic interest is at best, tolerated, and everyone else is hated. Dakota Johnson does not appear to really like either of these men. When Pedro Pascal says "I love you" and then Dakota Johnson replied "But I don't love you", the entire movie theater I was in burst out laughing. Of course she doesn't. The only thing she loves (including herself) is cheap beer
Contrast it to something like You've Got Mail which even the villain enjoys hanging w friends/family and working out w Dave Chapelle or Meg Ryan's genuine friendship with her coworkers/local kids. Bygone era.
I did like it tho when Celine Song slipped in that the family hedge fund was started by his MOTHER.
It's actually kind of a relief to see the gap that exists between life as portrayed on social media and the life that you see all around you when you get out into the real world.
"The most you can dream of is having some kind of mid-career job, falling in love with someone sort of likable, and endlessly working on yourself in the futile pursuit of self-optimization." — I've been seeing this in some contemporary fiction as well, and it's been depressing. This was a good reminder to seek the "personal," "individualistic," and "strange" in our own lives as well. Thank you for this insightful read!
Thanks for the considered analysis. I agree with it. It's interesting that the flaws of the films (frustrating characters, lack of friends to provide other voices, unhelpful messages) exist because the world they're reflecting is so flawed with broken societal interactions. To make a good, satisfying film, or TV series, about relationships in 2025 and beyond, perhaps filmmakers have to ignore the world around them and remake Friends or When Harry Met Sally (or other stories that feel alien now), or introduce the loss of wifi as a plot point that means people have to interact face to face with other humans?
I thought that Lucy and all her clients “not knowing what they want” was a feature, not a bug.
"I thought about this, and about Milly, when I was watching Celine Song’s Materialists over the summer. It is a film that is so wholly drawn from an anxious TikTok scroll that it washed over me like a blurry, vaguely offensive haze. It seemed fitting that Red Scare’s Dasha Nekrasova was cast in it, in a totally unmemorable and unnecessary role, like a nod to the dating discourse obsessed viewer for whom it is intended. It feels like the artistic equivalent of a Milly, a piece of media that is entirely modeled off of things you might see in a glossy and that is strangely out of step with the actual world."
Poor Dasha. But I understand. +1 :)))
Such a smart essay! I dug it