Materialists

Yes I did drink 42oz of Marg at a Mexican place that pours them really strong before watching this This was…honestly beautiful Between this and Past Lives it’s hard for me to understand how Past lives was the Oscar nominee and the critic’s choice and how everyone came out of this movie saying how it was a letdown in comparison  I feel like Materialists hit on everything I could have thought of and am thinking. And I think the difference between these for me was personal connection and your mental state at the moment you sit down to watch it. I can appreciate past lives for what it is and do understand why people resonated with it but this for me was everything that past lives was for other people. Every monologue in this really hit home in a way I didn’t think it would. Chris Evans had me tearing up with probably 45% of his spoken lines. When questioned why he loved her, all he could respond was that he just did. When he looks at her, all he could see was wrinkles and kids that look like her. In maybe the most chronically online, 21st century, cringe line I’ve ever heard in a movie, when Christ Evans told her that he would set a calendar reminder on his phone for every day that would remind him to love her and not take her for granted, despite it being so corny that was probably the line that resonated with me the most. And I think that’s mainly down to how I feel right now.  I think a lot of the themes in this movie were super on the nose. You should marry for love instead of making it transactional. You should look for substance in a person instead of superficial qualities that will fade. Both of those are pretty surface level themes to have be the central point of your movie but I think they were both demonstrated in such a way to really make you believe they were true and the fact they were so on the nose and easy to understand is what I liked about them. Past Lives I thought was far subtler and a lot of I just didn’t resonate with as much.  As someone in the firm grip of a very harsh quarter life crisis, who isn’t really sure what they want to do and doesn’t really think any aspect of their life is going particularly well (read: person who is just fine in every dating category, but not good enough to be exemplary in any, and not really filling any niche market) this left me both sad in the fact that that was the case but also hopeful that things will either improve or will work out in spite of that.  As someone who is a child of divorce whose parents split mainly due to financial issues, this was kinda therapeutic. I still can’t really see myself feeling sure enough in anything to get married, but I’d like to think now that if I do, it will be fire the right reasons, not in spite of the wrong reasons.  I’m going to put a spoiler tag on this and hope that no one reads it. I should really start therapy or at least start a journal that I don’t post for anyone who follows me to read. But for anyone who reads this far, I would give this a shot. If you’re a chronically online, desperate, lonely, child of divorce who worries a lot about everything, in a quarter life crisis who has just had 42oz of margarita, and canceled your ticket to see Megan 2.0 to watch this, I hope you relate.