Planning to see The Materialists? Might I suggest converting your popcorn bucket into a puke-catcher?

Dakota Johnson, the monotonal female lead who is seemingly incapable of voice inflection, manages to find her scene-girl self in the glorious situation of sleeping with both Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal. Unworthy of both, deserving of neither, she attempts to evoke an emotional dilemma from the audience as if we care. Not exactly Sophie’s Choice.

Through her problem-bangs, she addresses each character with the icy-void, pitchless voice of a transactionalist still pretending she’s not among the Cluster B personality disordered. Bottom line, the movie asks the underlying question: Would you choose money (Pascal) or financial struggle, but with the chance for real connection (Evans)?

Owning full well that she cares mostly about money, Johnson begins a cursory and superficial romance with Pascal. Good news! A shallow romance with Pascal is the second-best sex scenario in the entire hetero, and probably half the LGBTQ+ world. Pascal, smoldering, dressed impeccably, surrounded by luxury, showering one with comically large flower bouquets, is the feel-good movie of 2025 we’ve been waiting for (assuming you like feeling a certain, ahem, way).

Finally, the sex scene we bought tickets for arrives, only for many to be fully distracted by the un-ironed silk sheets. No one wants to fixate on blocky square wrinkle creases, undeniably sheets right out of the package, when you have a naked PEDRO PASCAL in bed, but thousands took to social media to complain. The sex itself? Vapid, room-temperature at best. I’ve seen hotter sex on Little House on the Prairie. At least the Ingalls girls went skinny dipping from time to time.

Enter Evans, aka America’s heavenly spandexed Ass. For my entire life, I thought Evans was British, and I was completely prepared to rant about the indignity of being colonized by wankers and efforts to dismantle patriarchal, imperial structures to secure Evans’ arse for all of the globe. Lo and behold, he’s American. My his-ass-should-be-a-national-treasure spiel is nowhere near as funny as my free-his-arse-from-colonial-tossers bit, so I admit I’m rattled. Sod off, I’ll get back to you.

Sultry, sexy, always hot, Evans and his bedroom eyes linger well after the film ends. I could literally taste the salt from his glistening flesh (actually, it was popcorn residue). Nonetheless, broke-ass-skinter (knowing he isn’t British, yet unable to break free from Britishisms) Evans is still dishy, and no pillock (oh no!) is kicking him out of bed. Leading to my point – if we are to genuinely believe the story’s premise, that at least some of these characters are materialists, Johnson and Pascal would get spliced (yikes!) and Johnson would keep it on the squash (someone stop me!) with Evans while funneling him Pascal’s dosh (guess I’m doing this). Pascal is already expecting such, welcomes it even, as it gives him the green light for having his own stitches (look it up if you must). Evans, in turn, gets propped up financially and gets to carry on with Johnson. Johnson, the biggest winner of all, I hope she gets pubic lice (not a Britishism), doesn’t have to decide which nipper (and I’m back) to surrender to the Nazis. Win-win, everything’s jammy.

But pish-tosh and bloody hell no! The movie ends with Johnson ditching Pascal in some sort of half-arsed, lifegasm glow-up, choosing Evans. I give them a week.