After the success of Past Lives, director Celine Song has become one of the most sought-after names in the filmmaking industry. The director’s construction of human and emotional narratives enables the audience to look into a story from different angles. The deep exploration of the human psyche when it comes to interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships is what sets director Song’s work different from the rest. It caters to the modern-day thinking and lifestyle of dealing with complicated labels, overwhelming narratives, and hyper-local beliefs that seek respite amidst the never-ending chaos of a journey that is life. Celine Song’s latest foray into the web of human relationships comes in the form of Materialists starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal.
The movie tells the story of Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a well-to-do matchmaker in New York City. Despite helping find men and women the partner of their dreams, Lucy remains cynical about love in her own life. She crosses paths with Harry (Pascal), a dreamy guy who has the looks, the wealth, and the charm. She begins seeing Harry, and then comes John (Chris Evans), Lucy’s ex, who is a complete foil to Harry. John is not so rich, but his feelings for Lucy more than make up for his lack of wealth. As the movie progresses, we see Lucy trying to weigh the pros and cons of being with either man.
Materialists Ending Explained: Why Did The Movie Conclude At The City Hall?
Materialists is being touted as THE romance movie of this year; however, upon further inspection, it is not your run-of-the-mill fairy tale romance. It is as heart-wrenching and uncertain as was director Song’s previous offering, Past Lives. Materialists conclude by saying that Lucy chooses John over Harry. It is also revealed that Harry had undergone surgery to make himself six inches taller, which works as a comment on the increasingly negative view of the world towards gaining love and validation from society by fitting oneself, even forcefully, into unrealistic and materialistic beauty standards.
John and Lucy are seen standing at the City Hall in line with other couples, waiting to get their marriage license. In a recent interview with Indie Wire, director Celine Song opened up about choosing such a technical and grim ending rather than a dreamy shot into the sunset. John chooses to propose to Lucy in the idyllic setting of the Central Park in New York, which carries a touch of romance and respite amid the bustling chaos of the city. She said that the City Hall ending aimed to add ambiguity to the story’s ending. City Hall is a place where people go to get their marriage license and also get their marriages legally dissolved after divorce. The ambiguity comes from the fact that the audience, and even the couples, don’t know if the marriage will last.
Explaining this idea, director Song said, “For a Hollywood ending, the line at the end of the film, the final line, and the line that is meant to be the most romantic line is, ‘How’d you like to make a very bad financial decision? You never know, and that’s why it ends in a marriage bureau [the film’s true last shot]. We don’t know how many of those marriages that happen in City Hall, how many are going to work. But we know in the news that 50 percent of them will fail. If you ask me what’s going to happen to Lucy and John, it’s 50-50. Unless either of them reaches a different tier in their class — if Lucy takes the promotion, or John catches a slightly bigger break — their chances of staying together would drop further. Maybe a miracle will still happen, where they are so moved by their love, and so in love, that they’re going to be able to move through it, which is the other 50 percent of those marriages that survive.”
She went ahead and compared the setting to a DMV, a place where you go to get your driver’s license. It is a bleak location where there is a 50-50 chance of getting your driver’s license. She refers to the City Hall as “both the most romantic place on Earth and the least romantic place on Earth.” She recalls her experience of getting married in the City Hall to her husband and screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes. She compares the experience of getting married in a City Hall to a caveman-like ceremony where every step is extremely technical, lacks adequate emotion, and yet it presents a promise of a lifetime.
She also likens the experience to getting a record of an eventful journey in one’s life. A person may fall out of love, may end a marriage, but there will be a record that at some point, they took on a role that changed the course of their life for some time.
Did John & Lucy Get Their Happily Ever After In Materialists?
This ending shot of the movie at the City Hall also goes to show that Lucy and John may not necessarily have the happy ever after that we are usually promised in romance stories. While Lucy and John’s story is romantic, it is also quite materialistic. Despite the characters living in New York City, they are quite grounded in their reality. Lucy, regardless of her 80,000 USD job, has a few debts of her own. It will not be a dreamy settling for Lucy and John as they begin their marriage, but it will certainly test their materialistic and emotional instincts time and again.
Like she did with Past Lives, Celine Song once again left the audience with an ‘anti-delusional’ romance story that leaves with a few lessons, a few questions, and a whole lot of pondering to do. This seemingly open-ended ending to Materialists keeps the story grounded in its reality, where wealth does not matter over the matters of the heart. The reality might be difficult, the challenges surmounting each day, but when it comes to love, no penny can make it last long. It is only a real connection between one human to another that determines how far the love will go.
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