A+Z Movie Review Podcast · Alex Long and Zach Cavanagh

Episode 47 - Materialists

·42 min·2 clips

Chris Evans is praised as the film’s strongest performance, even while the movie is called repetitive and lacking momentum.

1. A+Z Movie Review Podcast reviews Celine Song’s Materialists, which they describe as a summer release that was sold like a rom-com but did not play that way. 2. Alex and Zach host the episode, with Alex taking the stronger thumbs-down view and Zach landing on a sideways-thumb response after seeing Celine Song’s follow-up to Past Lives. 3. Their core question is whether Materialists works as a romance, a comedy, or a pointed critique of materialism. 4. Lucy, played by Dakota Johnson, is introduced as a matchmaker for wealthy New Yorkers who fills out client questionnaires about money, education, and physical preferences. 5. Pedro Pascal plays Harry, a “unicorn” in the matchmaking world with a $12 million apartment and a financial-analyst career. 6. Chris Evans plays John, Lucy’s ex-boyfriend, and the hosts frame him as a struggling artist whose appeal is tied to what Lucy used to know about him. 7. The episode says the movie’s marketing promised a 1990s-style love triangle, but the actual structure feels more sequential than triangular. 8. They note that the film has a wedding setting, a second wedding, and a later park lunch, but the emotional progression between those points felt underbuilt. 9. Alex says the dialogue often sounded stilted, especially in an early outside-the-wedding conversation between Lucy and John. 10. Zach argues that the first hour moves him along, but he still felt the movie never took off beyond setup. 11. A major plot point involves sexual assault against one of Lucy’s clients, which the hosts say creates a crisis of conscience for her. 12. They also discuss a real-sounding wealthy-person procedure in which people pay about $200,000 to become taller. 13. The hosts call out a detail about Harry and his brother both having that surgery, which changes how Lucy sees the relationship. 14. Alex praises the film’s visual choices, including the framing of client interviews and the contrast between a first-floor walkup and a $12 million penthouse. 15. Zach says Chris Evans gives the strongest performance, especially in a wedding monologue where John says he loves Lucy despite her flaws. 16. Both hosts mention that the film leaves them with a strange feeling because the scenes land better than the overall build. 17. The conversation is loose, conversational, and reflective, with long back-and-forth exchanges and several detours into theater reactions, box office numbers, and other summer releases. 18. The episode moves from the movie review into social-media reactions, Rotten Tomatoes scores, and whether critics responded differently because they saw the film earlier. 19. Listeners who like New York-set romances, Celine Song, or casting-driven debates may enjoy this episode. 20. Listeners wanting a straightforward rom-com endorsement or a spoiler-free soft sell may skip it.

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