The Love Triangle of the Summer

If this is a trend, I like it: a pop culture love triangle every summer. At the movies. Last year it was Tashi, Art, and Patrick in Challengers, played by Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor. This year it’s Lucy, Harry, and John played by Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans in Celine Song’s Materialists. 

Of course in Challengers, the love triangle was also a throuple – and while the relationships in Materialists seems to be a little more straightforward, the A24 marketing team is doing its job with whatever it is they might be hinting at. 

Here’s what Materialists gets right, like immediately, with the casting. Because one of the keys to a rom-com with a love triangle is that it should be a dilemma and whoever’s in the middle of it has to be believably torn. It is 100% believable that Dakota Johnson would be torn between Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. I mean, me personally, Pedro all the way. But Chris Evans is a formidable counter option. And, by rom-com formula, he’s usually the option. The guy with no money usually gets the girl – see also The Notebook. 

Materialists, however, is from the brain of Celine Song who doesn’t do sh-t by formula, and even if she is dabbling in formula, you know there’s still going to be a curve. And Pedro Pascal is the guy with all the money and who’s f-cking walking away from him and that bank account?! But also, in this economy? Let’s be real, who isn’t materialist? Are we sure that the ending from Madonna’s video for “Material Girl”, where she gets with the dude who rolls up in a pickup with fresh flowers is the choice that women in 2025 would be making?

I bring that up because a new trailer for Materialists just dropped yesterday and once again it’s set to that song, but this time it hits different because the trailer has been cut as a throwback to rom-coms in the 80s and 90s. That voiceover! It’s taking me there!

 

If you were around then, and you remember how trailers were presented, that voiceover is unmistakable. And here’s another point of nostalgic reference that relates to Materialists… 

Pretty Woman. 

In which a billionaire pulls over a sex worker and she ends up saving him right back. What would have happened if Richard Gere had some romantic competition in that movie in the form of a very non-billionaire. Speaking of movie trailers, though, note the tonal similarities between the new Materialists trailer and this one for Pretty Woman, especially when the voiceover kicks in at the one-minute mark. 

 

And one more, because there’s a family connection – Dakota Johnson was at a screening for Materialists on Wednesday in LA and her mom, Melanie Griffith, was there to support.

 

Working girls in the caption? That’s both Pretty Woman and Working Girl, same voiceover vibes. I love this marketing so much.