Alexandra Schwartz: Welcome to Critics At Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Alex Schwartz. 
Naomi Fry: I'm Naomi Fry. 
Vinson Cunningham: I'm Vinson Cunningham. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. How are you guys? Good. 
Naomi Fry: Doing great. Yeah. Good. Glad. Glad to be back after a week off for our country's holiday,
Vinson Cunningham: our country's holiday. It 
Alexandra Schwartz: is what it is. How are you, Vinson? 
Vinson Cunningham: I'm great and I'm excited to celebrate a better holiday. Mm-hmm. Because friends we're gathered here today to discuss, to celebrate the state of the romcom. That's right. The romantic comedy. They used to be a staple at the box office, and even though that's not really the case anymore, there has been a trend in the last, I don't know, five, 10 years of trying to reimagine the rom-com for today, whatever that means, and by whatever means possible.
We're gonna dig into this a little bit more later in the episode, but let's give the listeners a little teaser. What do we think's going on with the rom-com in 2025? 
Naomi Fry: Well, the rom-com, as you said, Vinson used to be like a mega commercial proposition. Right. But I think with the advent of the tentpole IP type movie, mm-hmm.
As kind of the only commercial proposition in town, the romcom has weirdly become kind of, if not actually indie, then. A place for potential experimentation. Mm-hmm. You know, 
Alexandra Schwartz: We're in yet another cycle of, is the rom-com dead long? Live the rom-com. I think we've been here before a few times.
We're back again in 2025. But if it's dead, people still keep wanting to make them, to watch them, to discuss them. But it's true that it doesn't have the kind of mainstream cultural purchase that it used to have, for sure. Mm-hmm. That's right. 
Vinson Cunningham: And to your point about the cyclical nature of, of the romcom and its life and death, this is not the first time that we've talked about this and tried to explore the state of the romcom way back on Valentine's Day 2023. Can you believe it? Were we ever so young, the New Yorker published a round table discussion where we talked about movies like, bros, you people, and Shotgun Wedding.
do you remember anything starring 
Naomi Fry: Josh 
Alexandra Schwartz: Doel and J-Lo? It took me so long into rereading that to remember what shotgun wedding was, the abyss.That was the film you people Okay. Did come more readily back to me. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Alexandra Schwartz: But shotgun wedding was truly forgettable and that I forgot all about it. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, that's what sometimes that's what it's for as well. 
Alexandra Schwartz: I mean, we're here because there are these two new properties that we were curious to discuss.
Celine songs, movie Materialists, which is being billed as the return of the rom-com and Lena Dunham's Netflix show too much. We have these two women who are saying, I love the genre. I want to reclaim the genre. And we are going to talk about if they have, 
Vinson Cunningham: so today we're gonna be talking about our favorite rom-coms from the screwball era through the nineties.
And we're also gonna be considering. These new entries into the genre, and the question I want us to consider is, is there anything new for the romcom to do? that's today on critics at large? Our will they, won't they with the romcom.
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So as we mentioned, we're gonna get into materialists, we're gonna get into too much, but maybe it bears laying some groundwork. What are some must have elements, Alex and Naomi, of a romantic comedy? What are we looking for just to begin with? 
Naomi Fry: I think there should be a pleasing balance, between fantasy and reality.
It should be to an extent, relatable, the plot and the characters  But. It has to reach for the stars in some way. Like it has to have some element of wish fulfillment and that equilibrium is, is hard to get, but when it's achieved, it's perfect. I'm thinking about like pretty woman for instance, which is of course completely fantastical, but has a kind of core of subjective relatability, like in its characters.
Mm-hmm. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Alright. I have a radical answer. Here's what needs to be in a romantic comedy, full penetration.
I actually, myself, do prefer a little sheet Russell, although, you know, I'm not afraid. Yeah. Um, I'm not afraid of it. Um, no, I'm gonna say romance and comedy and you're all gonna say, well, that's obvious. But you know what? Those qualities are often sorely lacking By romance, I mean just that little hopefulness.
Oh, that hope. That little hope. The hope that little inner shimmy that you wanna see someone undergoing. So true. So you wanna feel yourself, and for me,  that does have everything to do with if you can. No, you're talking about relatability.
There is a kind of fantasy and a romantic fantasy about who you could be like playing yourself into the film. So true. That is almost more important than the romantic partner. And then the comedy element funny. It does have to be funny. And that can actually be a harder note to strike. Mm-hmm. Comedy comedy's hard.
Vinson Cunningham: Comedy's famously hard. Yeah. It's impossible. I just think, and this is just straight up rudiments of storytelling. The reason the speech has to happen is that there has to be a moment when all seems impossible. 
Naomi Fry: Mm. That's, I, 
Vinson Cunningham: I judge it by like how. Good is the moment when whatever it is, somebody's been caught lying, somebody's done some sort of betrayal where it's over and I wanna see them climb that hill back into plausibility.
Alexandra Schwartz: You love an obstacle. Mm-hmm. 
Vinson Cunningham: And it's weird because in other forms of storytelling, I kind of don't like that I, I'm like not as invested in that kind of vertiginous plot, but in the rom-com for some reason, I do like it. Yeah. What's on the Mount Rushmore then? So like, based on these criteria and many more, there are many more criteria that we could name. What then rises to the top? 
Naomi Fry: Well, this is not the first time. That I've sung this tune on this show. Let the river run. There she goes.
There she goes. She'll take any opportunity, any opportunity. Working girl. My friends Mike Nichols's, working girl. Mm-hmm. Starring Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford, um, about a woman’s search for love, but not just love in the kind of tradition of like 1980s feminism, love and professional fulfillment. Mm-hmm
CLIP - WORKING GIRL
And it's a great example of a complete wish fulfillment movie where career does not negate love, but in fact compliments it. In an incredibly satisfying way. 
Alexandra Schwartz: She can have it all. 
Naomi Fry: She can have it all. Exactly. 
Alexandra Schwartz: And she can be it all. I mean, working Girl is such a great movie and it is so fascinating because it has to do, I mean, I have a whole argument that I'm just can't wait to trot out at some point in this episode about the condition of women in the 20th century and how it directly tracks onto the rom-com.
Um, another New York movie. New York is such a place in the rom-com world because of this kind of, I think, striving woman who we know me and I relate to surprise. Um, you've got mail’s a perfect film. Mm. It's a perfect film and it's reception history. Eyes were rolled and now everyone is regretting those roles.
Because, because now 
Naomi Fry: we love Barnes and Noble 
Alexandra Schwartz: because first of all, Barnes and Noble, the enemy in that movie in the guise of Fox books, right. Um, the mega store that's gonna put out Barnes and Noble, it's like 
Naomi Fry: a mom and pop shop. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Barnes, my goodness. Barnes and Noble is our last hope. 
Vinson Cunningham: It's like a little shoe making atelier. Exactly. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Mm-hmm. But more to the point. So You’ve Got Mail’s a perfect movie. It starts with the trope we were discussing in our romantasy episode from a few months ago. Um, Enemies to Lovers, and it's a clash all the way until some Okay. Fairly questionable stuff involving manipulation, but like all for the good goes down and they befriend one another and accept life.
But here's why I love this movie. I love this movie because of Meg Ryan, who is utterly pitch perfect as she's exactly the right degree of frazzled. 
        CLIP - MEG RYAN
She's utterly functional and loving and adorable and wears her heart on her sleeve. But she also is like totally who she is in the way that she was in those like Nora Ephron movies.
Also in, when Harry Met Sally, another total great. Mm-hmm. And so you're rooting for her. You're rooting for the good side of him. Mm-hmm. That could potentially come out. And this is of course, the other fantasy. In romantic comedy. The man is transformed by his love of a good woman. Oh yeah. Like 
He is this, you know, little shriveled-soul divorcee who just wants to make money and hang out on his houseboat in the Hudson River. Right. Who's transformed. 
Vinson Cunningham: Um, I always go back and forth about my favorite rom-com. It's often love and basketball. Omar Epps, Sanaa Lathan. Um, Sanaa Lathan is also another one of my favorite rom-coms, which is, it's, it's a, it's a hybrid comedy drama ensemble piece, but romance is really, at its core, it's called The Best Man.
And essentially it's about a group of friends. And this is, this for me is classic, really, it is about a wedding there. It's the, the lead up to the wedding of two of the friends. And it is learned because one of the friends played by Taye Diggs, um, is a writer and he has written a novel, and, and it's found out by the character that's played, uh, by Morris Chestnut who's getting married that way.
Back in college, there was a betrayal.  
        CLIP - THE BEST MAN
 And what ensues is a drama of betrayal, uh, including Taye Diggs potentially cheating on his girlfriend. Played by Sanaa Lathan. Ooh, that should never have happened to you. Um, for me, the best man is the great text of a kind of black Gen X sensibility.
They're kind of like, they have, there's incense and people are playing the guitar and it's like sexy in a way that I wanted to be. It came out in 1999, um, and it's directed by Malcolm D. Lee, who has continued to create, um, these movies. But for me, one of the good things about a romcom is that it can introduce you to a whole milieu and a whole kind of social stratum to which you can sort of aspire to live in.
Naomi Fry: Yeah, I mean, that makes me think of another point. Vinson, the idea of kind of aspirationally. Mm-hmm. And when the rom-com catches you in your own life, like when are you watching this? Like, in my early teen years. Mm-hmm. You know, like watching these classic rom-coms when I was myself on the verge of entering into the romance plot, right?
Mm-hmm. Or like the sex plot, I guess, and having these movies transmit to me what to look for, like what are the values that I would myself want to adopt as like a person who is seeking her own. Love connection. That's right. 
Alexandra Schwartz: I love that you're saying that because I do think that in some rom-coms, in some of the great ones, that issue is itself dramatized.
What kind of life do I wanna live? And your expectations around it, or the fantasies around it being actually defied in favor of something that is not at all what you thought would be your ideal. And that is so fun to watch. Mm-hmm. Because. The ideal romcom is also a journey to self knowledge. Mm. It's not just about your perfect wish fulfillment and you got exactly what you wanted.
You have to learn something about yourself and have your expectations defied and come out realizing that you now know what love is because it caught you by surprise. Mm. That's where the magic is. Mm. And when there's chemistry between the leaves, chemistry. Chemistry, so that you believe it. Yes. That's where the magic is.
Naomi Fry: Yes. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Naomi Fry: Yes. And I wanna return once again to full penetration. Okay. Yes. Not because I actually think there should be full penetration in the romcom. Let's clarify. Let's clarify. It was a joke, but the belief in the possibility of sex, because actual sex, you know, the romcom is historically not an explicit genre.
There is a hint of, of forthcoming sex. There should be, uh, in, in the good ones, there is attraction, you know, chemistry, the promise, the potential of sex needs to be there. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, look, I'm, I'm deep in the Nora Ephron thing, obviously. I know that's rather typical and not gonna shock anyone, but when Harry met Sally, of course, directed by Rob Reiner, but written by Nora Ephron sex ruins everything briefly before everything is made right again.
Mm-hmm. And that is also such a great part of that movie, because that's also realistic. Yeah. Where like, the wish fulfillment finally happens. And I just, I will never forget that. Kind of like, smirk just I know when she wakes up Yeah. On Meg Ryan's face and he's like, oh, God's so happy. And he's just like, I cannot get out of here fast enough.
Yeah. Um, brilliant. Brilliant. You know, how are you gonna work your way back from that? Yeah. Let's, let's get to that third act and find out. Let's find out. 
Vinson Cunningham: This summer, two projects are trying to take up the mantle of the modern romcom: Materialists and Too Much. How do they succeed or not in updating the genre?
That's in a minute on critics at large from the New Yorker.
:: MIDROLL 1 :: 
Okay, now it's time to get contemporary. Let's turn to the 2025 hopeful entries into the romcom canon. Do they make it in? Let's see. Let's start with Celine Song’s Materialists. Would anyone like to offer us. A synopsis. 
Naomi Fry: I can try. So, in materialist, we have Lucy, uh, played by Dakota Johnson. She is a matchmaker 
        CLIP
She knows exactly what makes a relationship potentially work, and what makes her so good at her job is that she is completely unsentimental. She sees marriage as a business proposition. Mm-hmm. 
It's math, as she says when the movie opens, she is attending a wedding of one of her clients that she set up successfully. And two things happen in that wedding. First of all, she meets Harry, played by Pedro Pascal,  
        CLIP 
He is incredibly wealthy, he's very handsome. He's tall, he's urbane, he's stylish. He appears at least kind. Mm-hmm. Um, and he's single at the same time as she's kind of flirting with Harry.  She runs into John, her old boyfriend, played by Chris Evans, who she broke up with because he was broke.
And so the movie is basically about this triangle. It's about Lucy. Trying to determine whether she should go with Harry, which according to her principles is the perfect match, or whether she should go back to John, who, according to her principles, is a complete dud.
Vinson Cunningham: That is 100% correct between the, the, the, the nailed 
Naomi Fry: it, the 
Vinson Cunningham: dashing, very eligible, viable, Pedro Pascal and the Dirt Bag Artist. Chris Evans. Alex, did you like this movie? 
Alexandra Schwartz: Oh my God, I have so much to say about this movie. Oh my God. I can't wait to hear Alex's take,  I have a feeling I'm going to be right in between Naomi and Vinson.
I'm guessing. Don't tell me yet if I'm right. I'm guessing Vinson loved, Naomi hated. And here I am, very confused in the middle. Okay. I'm seeing nods, so I think I'm onto something. Okay. I, I know my fellow critics okay. Know it's Naomi, don't feel slighted, don't feel slandered. Not at all. I'm just gonna say where came out.
No, I in fact seen 
Naomi Fry: and recognize Ah, true. And that's love. And that is love. Mm-hmm. Good. But it's also hate. Well, it's my 
Alexandra Schwartz: love for you. 
Naomi Fry: Yes. It's my hate for the materialist. Got it. No, no, no, no, no. It, it's, it's not hate. I did not think it was a very good movie. I. I thought it was trying to do something interesting and there was things about it that I liked, but I felt it was completely, and I, and I understand, I think that this was intentional in some ways, the soporific vibe of this movie, the complete kind of evenness of it in terms of dialogue, in terms of tonality, uh, in terms of the characters being indistinguishable from, from each other in, in anything except obviously like appearance was trying, I think to make a point about this kind of world that amounts to math.  Dakota Johnson characters especially, um, she is unruffled, but unruffled to the extent where I was like, is she, has she taken like seven Xanax bars like before, you know, doing every scene? that I was like, okay, I can see that this could be, yes. Again, a comment on like. We're not talking about big emotion here. We're talking about calculation. Right? We're talking about business. And so this is the way relationships between people are.
She, you know, famously, and this has been talked about in, in stuff written about this movie, upfront tells Harry the Pedro Pascal character when she first meets him, she's like, I make $80,000 a year. I know you make much more. Right. Basically she comes to his beautiful Tribeca apartment.
The first time she's like, how much is this place? He's like, it's $12 million. Right. the problem for me was that the same kind of soporific, like Xanax vibe continued, like from start to finish for me.
but then that seemed to me to be at odds with the, the kind of like central conflict the movie was trying, the choice. Mm-hmm. Which, which seemed the kind of the Zo dere of this movie. Alex, what do you think?
Whew. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Well, I had a splendid time seeing this movie by myself,  the chair next to me, absolutely empty, laughing out loud, enjoying myself, laughing out loud. I was laughing out loud because what I liked very much about it, especially in the first half of the movie, and what I found refreshing was that it foregrounded these materialistic aspects.
And it made them the total focus and part of the comedy of the movie right up top. Like we were talking about Jane Austen a few weeks ago. This is a world in which everybody knows how much the eligible mate has per year, right? And the material conditions of what that marriage will look like are everything to determining whether there's compatibility.
And though we like to think we've moved so far from this world and we like to flatter ourselves that we care about such different things. I don't think that's really so much the case. And this is a very like harsh light shown on that.  there's a really fun. Opening where it begins with a caveman couple and a scene of courtship that, um, is both ridiculous and somewhat touching and cuts to contemporary Manhattan where Dakota Johnson is clacking around in her click-clack heels. But You know, what I like about it upfront is you get these interviews between the Dakota Johnson character and her clients, and you see that all of them, first of all have this desperation around them.
And I found the frank acknowledgement that worth and the acknowledgement of worth is what people are looking for in this, in the dating market. To be funny and to feel true. I didn't, you know, is it cynical? It's absolutely cynical.
But part of the promise of the movie is that it's gonna break down that cynicism and get to the warmer crust underneath. So therefore you have the Chris Evans character and what got me there was. It is for Lucy, this choice between the past and the future. Chris Evans character is living, he's 37.
He lives like he's 27 and and I found that funny too, like the, his horrible apartment with his gross roommates. You know, there's a wince of recognition from me. Like if you are woman, you've seen that apartment possibly. If you're a ma, it's not good. Yeah, it's not a good feeling. 
And I found the truthfulness of that and the fact that she wouldn't wanna go back there refreshing. And I enjoyed it. And I also admit to being absolutely fascinated by the affectlessness of Dakota Johnson. Like it's fascinating. It's fascinating in part because I think in Dakota Johnson, you have a really capital, A adult. She is living in her uncluttered apartment. She's making money for herself. She looks really great. She's focused on her end game. She's adulting all the way. Um, and that kind of character, I think has actually fallen out a bit of the rom-com space and of 
Vinson Cunningham: someone who actually has it together.
Alexandra Schwartz: Yeah, someone who actually has it together. Then of course, the problem becomes that there's nothing underneath that you, you don't understand. You don't see what the Chris Evans character sees in her, and the movie doesn't try to make you see it either. It just relies on the idea that they had a pass together.
It relies on, um mm-hmm. You know, him declaring his feelings for her inexplicably and while she treats him quite badly, the 
Naomi Fry: inexplicability 
Alexandra Schwartz: Yeah, that's what I'm 
Naomi Fry: trying to say. So it 
Alexandra Schwartz: it did all, it did all fall apart in, in my opinion, and My question for you guys and for the audience of this movie and For Celine Song is, is there no middle ground? Whence the grownup, where's the grownup man option? Who isn't this like weird corporate, I'm gonna take you only to sushi restaurants person.
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Or an absolute mess. Who? I'm sorry. I can't respect. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Well I think part of that is like the description of Dakota Johnson's character that you offered at the beginning, which is she's the middle ground. She is neither of those things. One of my favorite things about this film, and this is one of the reasons that you are totally right, I'm profiling me. I loved it was in fact the performances because, um. Naomi's right.
When we think about the rom-com, we do think about relatability. And with relatability comes naturalism in acting. And this movie's like, Nope, these people don't act like people. Yeah. And the, the dual meaning it seems to me of the title is like, yes, there's economic materialism, but there's also a kind of spiritual material.
What if there's no great soul either? What if people aren't these bundle of wonderful qualities that are waiting to be awakened by love? Right? The, the self-realization thing that you mentioned, Alex, what if that's not in play? Actually? um, it seemed to me to be a counterfactual exercise.
What if we just are. An accrual, like, yes, we have histories, but We're not some great thing beneath the surface. And we are. So the, the awkwardness of all the performances to me seemed to be part of a kind of mission statement, which I admired the commitment to it all through the film.
I don't really think that we're supposed to think that she and Chris Evans are really some great, all comp-, like every single backstory shot is just of them. There's one where they get out of a car in the middle of what seems to be Times Square and they're just yelling at each other because of, you know, it's their anniversary and there's this shitty date and nothing that he does is good enough.
He's not, it's not like he's poor, but thoughtful. It's not like he's poor, but particularly funny. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah, 
Vinson Cunningham: he's kind of nice to her, but that's it. He's just poor. Yeah, he's just poor. 
Naomi Fry: Come on, you guys. He is a handsome man and not 
Vinson Cunningham: even poor.  
Alexandra Schwartz: He's a hot man. Yeah, he's a hot 
Vinson Cunningham: man. And so, by the way, as Pedro Pascal  and then there's a great big joke in the middle of the movie.
I won't let it go, but he has, um, done things to, to sort of enhance his viability, which calls into question even his sort of dashing exterior. But one thing I do wanna highlight is that We won't spoil it, but there is like somewhere in the middle of this movie are, we are.
Reminded that beneath all dating is also the, like the specter of violence. Right? And so yeah, this hope, this aspiration is a great big risk that why are we taking it? It, it really does call the whole enterprise into question in a way that, again, I thought was brave, but also made me think maybe it's not a romantic comedy.
That's, it seemed to me to be just like a romantic thriller or horror movie. Yeah. Um, that was marketed in this way because of it wants to subvert a thing. I don't know that this movie believes in love. That's what I like about it. this movie's like, no, we're all alone. 
Vinson Cunningham: I would like to talk about a story that does believe in love. A TV show called Too Much. It's written produced, largely directed by now a seasoned entrant into this melee, which is Lena Dunham. And it is about a young woman, uh, named Jessica played by. For me, and I'll get into my take, the brilliant Megan Stalter, who has left New York after a disastrous breakup and moved to London and immediately, um, first threw kind of a hookup at a bar, uh, immediately finds herself in the throes of a new romance.
Alexandra Schwartz: I will add another drop into the cup by saying that the personality mix is kind of what this is all about. The Megan Stalter character, Jessica Salmon is the, too much of the title She is. Uh, going to say whatever comes to her mind as soon as it comes to her mind, She's the opposite in every way of who Dakota Johnson is in Materialists, right?
She's going to be as much herself as possible. And that person is brassy loud, out there unafraid to look like a total mess, which she is at the start of the series. And her love object is this indie musician, Felix Rein, who she meets at a pub and he is much lower key. He is conventionally handsome.
Whereas, and this is something that the show, I think wonderfully does not emphasize, but it is part of the subtext. The Jessica character is like this fat woman and he's just sort of like this conventionally handsome guy. Um, and he has had this dark relationship to drugs and alcohol. He's now sober and kind of trying to stand the straight and narrow, but he is not.
Part of Grownup Life, and she sort of is, she has the job, she's in London to be a producer on a Christmas ad, but he in many ways seems more grownup than she does while on paper. She's the one who's more grown up. And I think the series really works with that. Again, these questions of what is attraction, but also how does that translate into making a life together and how do these sort of youthful questions of sex and love and infatuation lead into something more stable?
I think that's at the heart of this series too. 
Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And one other thing that I think we should note is that this show was produced by Working Title, which is a production company that has worked on kind of the most famous British romcoms, you know, uh, like, uh, love actually, and like Notting hill and you know, that whole genre and so.
And, and the series itself plays with that. You know, Jessica as a kind of expat who's coming to London and has these dreams, these fantasies based on watching exactly these, uh, rom-coms is coming to this new city, imagining that she might find her kind of British lover that answers certain kind of either Jane Austenian or kind of the contemporary version of that ideas that she has in her mind about what makes a romance and what ends up happening.
And this is kind of part of the restructuring of, of the whole idea of the romcom in the series is, is life happens in a different way than what she might fantasize about. 
Vinson Cunningham: It's, it's interesting though, and first of all, I mean, I am a big fan of. Lena Dunham’s work. I I the first season of girls I think is just y 
Naomi Fry: Well, yeah, I mean, nothing like that will ever be repeated.
Vinson Cunningham: It's just a, such a fastball and I think she's done it again. I think she's done it again. It really is a show about a kind of lifecycle of the most intense parts of romantic couplings, breakups and beginnings. Two things that are equally if different in valence equally kind of unbearable. The texting, the waiting, the, the rollercoaster of emotions that happens in the early parts of a relationship that kind of make it impossible to, um.
Uh, Jessica has, has come to work to London, and she can barely even pay attention to work. There's a capsule episode where she stays up all night knowing that she's got important stuff to do, cannot do it because they're in, they're talking, they're watching movies, they're having sex, can't focus on anything.
And on the other hand, she's fixating on her, her breakup, her ex, uh, Zev, who's played by Michael Zegen, is in, um, a relationship with a kind of influencer who's played by Emily Ratajkowski. Um, and she's watching all of their videos keeping a, a, a diary on a secret Instagram. Yeah. Which is directed toward this influencers, whose name is Wendy.
Um, and so this obsession, the like kind of horrible bits of love, um, I just thought it was great. 
Alexandra Schwartz: I love what you say, and yet I have a question for you. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alexandra Schwartz: And that question is, did you like the relationship at the heart of this TV show? Did that work for you? 
Vinson Cunningham: Do I like the relationship? 
Alexandra Schwartz: Did that give you romcom Ooh. Will they or won't they? Or how's this gonna go? Well, because it's like 
Vinson Cunningham: they, they get to, it's, it's almost not that because they're so together at the beginning. And part of it is that the like absolute mania of the beginning of relationship when you're not even sure if it's the right thing to do and you're spending probably too much time together.
So I, I liked, I believed the relationship for sure. Um, did I like it? N no. I was harrowed by it. 
Naomi Fry: You were harrowed by it. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Show. I think it's, you have it folks. It's harrowing and there you have it, folks. It's harrowing and I will tell you, which I didn't mind. Okay. 
Naomi Fry: So, so what were you harrowed by? Because apropos what you were saying, Alex, about like, the will they or, won't they.
They will from the very beginning is the thing, which I thought was very interesting and an interesting choice because once again, you know, we talked about Materialists and it's kind of like weird relationship to like, is this even a rom-com here in a different way. I think that's a question as well, because.
From the very beginning. It's like they move in together essentially. I mean, not move in together, you know, it's like 
Vinson Cunningham: for some of us are like this. No, no, no. I'm, I'm not saying 
Naomi Fry: it, it doesn't happen. 
Vinson Cunningham: Serial relationship representation. Yeah, yeah, 
Naomi Fry: yeah, yeah. No I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm just saying it's a particular choice to say we're going in, we're meeting at the bar and we're moving it.
You know, like it's, it's just a different type of thing. 
Alexandra Schwartz: No, you're exactly right. They're meeting, they're fucking, they're spending all night talking.
They're, you know, they're in each other's lives, but there's the bigger question of. Will these two very, very different people find compatibility and a kind of a stability together. And in one way, even beyond the way the show works, we know they will because this is a kind of a roman a clef show. It's based on Lena Dunham's relationship with her now husband, Luis Felber, who is her co-creator in the show.
And there are strong notes of her ex Jack Antonoff in the Ex who she leaves in New York, who is not a Jack Antonoff mega producer, but is this kind of failing music writer who's really self serious and goes from this kind of love bomber character into this much darker, um, egomaniacal putter downer of Jess.
He's a putter downer. He's a real putter downer. So here's what I think about this show. I got very irritated. By the Jess character. It's not a fact I'm proud of necessarily, but it's just what it is. She was too much for me for a while. I just felt like her expectations for the relationship. Were things that would serve her in every single particular finding someone who would kind of just be able to like, accommodate her in every single way without having to move an inch in a direction towards accommodating the needs of this guy. And I've seen five episodes.
I think there are 10 total. There's 10, yeah. So maybe that will change. Mm-hmm. But there's a lot of putting up with Jess and kind of the chillness of Felix, and to me I sort of started to feel like, you know, Lena Dunham specializes in these over the top female characters.
That's what made Girls such a, um, a lightning rod of discussion, I think in a lot of ways. Yeah. And I really admire her for that. And yet I felt this kind of self-justifying note in some of this where, and I don't know if this changes later in the series, but it just felt like, um, a lot of taking a mile and giving no inches.
Yeah. On the part of the character, Jess, and where she really came alive to me was in this flashback episode about her first relationship. And I like that the show accommodates the space for that. This kind of anti romcom basically.
Mm-hmm. In, in this long episode where you have this super meet-cute, they meet at a bar and he, like, her pizza's been taken and her friends have left and he just swoops in like a prince Charming and he love bombs the hell out of her. She's the best. She's so great. And over time you just see like a noose tightening and he starts withholding affection.
He starts criticizing her body and her fashion choices. Um, he just becomes cruel and cold and manipulative and that. Talk about harrowing, utterly harrowing. So that brings a lot of sympathy to the character, and I love what Lena Dunham did with that anti romcom format, the falling out of love and the realizing that you've been betrayed by love.
I thought that was brilliant. I will absolutely keep watching this show. Um, but at the moment I'm wondering, and maybe this has to do with materialists also, these are two totally. These are just like poles of straight. Womanhood that are the extremes. One is this like adult robot, like I am adulting and the other is this adult robot.
Yeah. Yeah. And the other is this like absolute mess? Yeah. But like a child like, like 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Needs a caretaker. Insists on her independence, but actually insists on being taken care of at all times. And I'm looking for the one who accommodates both. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm.
Romantic comedies have always reflected their era's gender dynamics. So what do these rom-coms have to say about ours? That's in a minute on Critics at Large.
:: MIDROLL 2 :: 
Alex, earlier you mentioned that you had a theory to unspool about the romcom and. The changing fate of women in their lives. I would love to hear this. Take uncorked. 
Alexandra Schwartz: You ready to unspool that threat? 
Vinson Cunningham: Unspool, unfurling, unfurl, uncork, all different kinds of metaphors I'm offering. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Mm. I like it. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Um, yeah.
Well, so Naomi was talking earlier about this kind of like projection onto these figures in the romcom and the need to project on, and I do think that the romcom really gets its lifeblood from reflecting back women's circumstances in this realistic but also idealized way, as Naomi was saying. And because the economic, the political, and the domestic fate of women has changed utterly over the last, you know, hundred years just so happening to coincide with the history of cinema itself.
You know, we get this kind of. Track record of female fantasy of what life and love is. And I find that really interesting. So like, you know, we have earlier romcoms, like   I love the classic Tracy Hepburn romcoms. I dunno if that's big for you guys, but like those movies are, are sparkling and charming and hilarious.
And of course, chemistry up to the nines, you know, lifelong, semi-secret relationship. Like, hello, there it is on screen, it's happening. And like, so a classic example of that is the movie Adam's Rib, um, which was made in 1949 was directed by George Cooper and from screenplay written by Ruth Gordon and Garon Canaan.
 and it's about married lawyers who oppose each other in court and they oppose each other on the question of men and women's rights and relationships. And so you have this great view into a time when women had just, you know, been working during World War II when the men were gone.
Now they, they have been powered like never before, but they're on, as we know, the cusp of the regressive 1950s.  And so you have Spencer Tracy as a prosecutor, Katherine Hepburn as a defense attorney.
She's defending a woman who tried to kill her husband because he was having an affair. He is prosecuting that guy and you get such comedic. Like friction. Mm-hmm. Like no other of this couple going up against one another. But you also have real tension because this starts to eat into their own relationship.
And this kind of drives them apart before they come back together. So those are some really real issues getting worked out in the space of one very funny comic movie. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Um, and then like, cutting ahead to the romcoms that Naomi and I love. Mm-hmm. Like in the eighties, everything has changed.
Women suddenly, it's not taboo to pursue a career. There is the beginning of the having it all discourse, the like ruinous having it all discourse where there is this idea that you can wear your shoulder pads and perhaps have, get higher up on the corporate ladder or have a career as a journalist as Sally does.
And when Harry met Sally, even though we don't know very much about her career as a journalist, Divorce is an option. So the romcom  has to give you a relationship that first of all doesn't feel like it's just settling because we now know divorce is an option.
It has to like sell that fantasy of the empowered women back to women. And when it does, like we eat it up with a spoon, we totally do. Guilty is charged. Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: Because what could be really more perfect. Um, I. Yeah. Career fulfillment and love fulfillment. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Yeah. And someone who recognizes, you know, your value in, in both areas basically.
And now I feel like we're in a little bit, I wonder if the crisis in rom-coms has to do with a crisis in how adult women wanna be or wanna see themselves. Because again, these characters in too much and in materialists are on total opposite poles to a point of extremity that I find instructive. And neither of them seems to me to be living a life that, like, I like to think that the ideal romantic comedy heroine has a little bit of frazzle, not too much.
Mm-hmm. Like a little bit of relatable frazzle. And in too much it's all frazzle. Yeah. And in materialists it's absolutely zero. Frazzle. She is a, a straightened ponytail. Like that's what she is. So, you know, where are women wanting to see ourselves and also. Where do men come into this equation?
Vinson Cunningham: Right. And, and is a little bit of frazzle, but everything's gonna be okay. Is that just the romantic expression of Clinton era political economy? Yeah. Is that just the end of history? Because what's interesting about Materialists is the fact that you feel that, um, certainly the Chris Evans character could fall off the end of the earth and there is precarity such that, um, there is kind of danger in it.
Uh, you know, I don't want to do like any kind of rote. Identity politics. But it does seem to me interesting that Celine Song, uh, has created a world of mostly white people and is not herself white and was not born in this country. And therefore, the, some of the gimlet eyed stuff that we're watching in this movie is an outsider's look in, into perhaps a white middle class that doesn't really exist anymore.
Naomi Fry: Yeah, it's, yeah. And is 
Vinson Cunningham: fraying and is falling apart. So All of a sudden, class differences are not just aesthetic, they are existential. Yeah. And I wonder if that's our changing political economy sort of asserting itself. 
Naomi Fry: I think there's also a point to be made here that Too Much takes place in England while Materialists takes place in America.
Mm-hmm. In New York, I think you're absolutely right. It's existential, the class thing, or there's a sense that it could potentially be life and death. Save yourself and hitch your wagon to the star of Pedro Pascal, who will never go hungry. Right. You will never go hungry. Please daddy, save us. Save us with your like $12 million loft.
You know? That's right. Because that's the only chance we're grasping at like. Please like the, the Bezoses of the world. Like those are That's send me 
Vinson Cunningham: to space daddy. Yeah. Send 
Naomi Fry: me to space daddy. That's the only way to be safe. Mm-hmm. Right. Whereas I do think that in Too Much, there is a scene early on, I don't remember if it's the first or second episode where Felix is on the dole.
Mm-hmm. It, it's implied. He goes to talk to like the welfare office and is talking to this guy who's like, have you tried to find a job? Like in the last, you know, I'm not saying that's some idealized state right. Of like a welfare isn't, isn't happening in England, like seamlessly and frictionlessly.
That's right. Certainly. But there is a sense that he's not gonna go hungry. Like he'll somehow go on with his life and kind of like be an indie musician and live with a lot of roommates, but it's not gonna be a life and death situation. Right? Mm-hmm. Uh, whereas I think you're completely right in Materialists, there is a much harsher.
Kind of starkly black or white life and death thing going on. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Yeah. And I think it also has to do with masculinity, you know, surprise, how could it not? But in, in materialists you have these two very different visions of masculinity that are both in crisis. You have the Pascal character who yes, looks like a very traditional husband, material kind of guy.
He has all the money. He's suave, he has, he buys the right flowers for the date. He goes to the right restaurant. He is a provider figure. And then you have the polar opposite. This kind of, I can't even provide for myself. I don't, you know, I, I broke my shoelace three days ago and I've had to walk around with a rubber band, you know, which kind of kind of vibe.
Kind of vibe. Kind 
Vinson Cunningham: of vibe. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Kind of vibe. Um, from, from this other guy who feels himself to being crisis over his masculinity for obvious reasons he can't provide. But it comes out, and here is a little bit of a spoiler. Um, it comes out that Pedro Piscal has. His character has, and here we almost laugh together, physical insecurities.
Okay. Um, he's had physical insecurities about his own marketability, his own ability to attract. So on the one hand, like, I like that this movie is highlighting that fact of reality for men. You know? Yeah. The fact that the culture is talking about this a little more, and then in, in too much, you have a character who basically is analogous to John.
He's an indie musician. and the masculinity there comes through in this kind of softer, caring way. I think the fact that he's equipped to care for. Jess to make her tea, to listen to her, to kind of have this gentle touch.
I think that's presented as this winning version of contemporary masculinity. Mm-hmm. As opposed to Jess's ex-boyfriend who feels frustrated and takes out his thwarted ambition on his girlfriend by denigrating her and bringing her down. So I think that both of these projects are basically trying to speak to the fact that everyone's ideals are in question.
No one kind of knows and like to add to this, we're sitting around her talking as if it's, you know, as if we're ourselves cave people about like men and women in heterosexual relationships. Like, okay, there are many alternatives to these things Now, of course, of course it's an of course, but it's also, I think like.
You know, what you see and what's fun and too much is you see that like all of her coworkers are living these very different lives, like divorced or wanting to try being a lesbian or whatever it is. Like wanting to kind of flirt with all of the possibilities that are open in 2025. That's right. As opposed to like going down the standard romcom road.
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Well you say masculinity, it's so true. One of the refrains of materialists is this idea of the, the quote unquote high value man, tall, rich, whatever. And that is a refrain that is taken directly from, at least in my experience, the manosphere. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: One of the refrains of this space, the men's rights activism space, is 80% of women want 10% of men. This idea of a kind of scarcity that, um, nobody wants, and this goes to the point that you made about Dakota Johnson's. Wide chasm of choices. Nobody wants the 80 K man who kind of gets by and rents an apartment and no, no, no.
You have to be this Superman who can provide and perhaps let you not work. All, all of a sudden, these ideas of the love match of two equals, even the two income household, nobody in a nineties romcom is like, therefore leaving their job because they got married. That's not the, at least the ethos. Mm-hmm.
We're together. I'm the publisher, I'm a journalist, I, we do this together, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now we both look at each other's work over our shoulder and be like, oh, good job at work, honey. Um, all of a sudden there's this idea that like the love match is not only a haven from the outside world, but it seems that like patriarchal heterosexuality is as it is in our culture, reasserting itself.
Alexandra Schwartz: Yeah.  this actually makes me feel very hopeful because. About the rom-com because it does mean that the rom-com has a kind of like a political radicalness to it. 
Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. 
Alexandra Schwartz: By simply by positing, you know, in that intermediate space that I keep being drawn to. That's between the fairytale and the utter hobbesian.
You know, life is nasty, brutal and ishness of it all. Mm-hmm. Between the looks maxing and the, you know, oh, I just, you, you know, you took off your glasses in a, in a beautiful flower was beneath the ogis. 
Naomi Fry: Yes. 
Alexandra Schwartz: Like, you know, that, that in the space of reality where love and attraction and, and soul spark happen for all different kinds of reason that are both material and totally non-material.
That like, that's the place to explore that. That's interesting. And I do think you're seeing two. Heterosexual women trying to make a case against that culture that you're talking about, Vinson.
Mm-hmm. That kind of like, you know, the the manosphere culture Yeah. Of where everything is about a number and there is this idea that everyone's in competition with one another and, um, yeah. That it's just about resource hoarding, but we're all trying to figure out what we want from other people and that is kind of what the rom-com is, is about.
So it's rich ground. Yeah. Come back to it, filmmakers.
Vinson Cunningham: This has been Critics at Large. This week's episode was produced by Michele O'Brien. Alex Barasch is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Conde Nast's head of Global Audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Cuadrado composed our theme music and we had engineering help today from James Yost with Mixing by Mike Kutchman.
You can find every episode of Critics at Large at New yorker.com/critics.