{"id":556930,"date":"2025-11-08T09:07:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:07:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/556930\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T09:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T09:07:20","slug":"from-jennifer-lawrences-new-movie-to-materialists-one-song-is-suddenly-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/556930\/","title":{"rendered":"From Jennifer Lawrence\u2019s new movie to Materialists, one song is suddenly everywhere."},"content":{"rendered":"

When it came time to commission a new pop song for her bittersweet romance Materialists<\/a>, Celine Song had a simple guideline for prospective songwriters: Make it like John Prine\u2019s \u201cIn Spite of Ourselves,\u201d which Song has called \u201cthe most romantic song in the world.<\/a>\u201d The duet between Prine and the singer Iris DeMent has been turning up in all kinds of mismatched love stories this year, a remarkable resurgence for a revered songwriter who died in 2020<\/a>. It\u2019s in the headphones of the slouchy Brit played by Will Sharpe the morning after he hooks up with Meg Stalter\u2019s frenzied American on Lena Dunham\u2019s Netflix series Too Much<\/a>, and it\u2019s the anthem that Jennifer Lawrence\u2019s blocked novelist and Robert Pattinson\u2019s absentee dad use to cement their ill-advised marriage in Lynne Ramsay\u2019s new movie Die My Love. The two even end up singing it to each other later on, a moment that served as a major hook for the movie\u2019s trailers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The \u201cmore upbeat<\/a>\u201d version Japanese Breakfast\u2019s Michelle Zauner came up with for Materialists, \u201cMy Baby (Got Nothing at All)<\/a>,\u201d is a snug coda for a movie about love trumping economic precarity. As the credits roll over footage of couples lining up for no-frills marriages at New York\u2019s City Hall, Zauner sings about a man whose devotion to her is more important than his bank balance: \u201cCold cash comforts are overrated. \u2026 Only company baby\u2019s got is mine.\u201d But it\u2019s almost too snug, as if its soaring chords are meant to banish the audience\u2019s lingering doubts without actually resolving them.<\/p>\n

The trouble is less with the song itself than with Song\u2019s attempt to pivot toward a conventionally reassuring ending, which feels tacked onto a movie dedicated to the idea that the choice between love and money is never as simple as movies make it out to be. Dakota Johnson\u2019s Lucy is a professional matchmaker whose moneyed clients come to her with long lists of demands in their ideal mate, from annual income to minimum height. But her personal dilemma isn\u2019t entirely a superficial one. Lucy\u2019s longtime boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), is a struggling actor in his mid-30s who still lives with multiple roommates, taking the odd catering gig to pay his meager rent. And, as Lucy hovers around the same age, her job drives home every day that her value as a romantic asset is rapidly running out. If she stays with this lovable loser, she risks losing her chance of marrying a man who could give her the lifelong comfort she desires. Given that financial issues are one of the most frequent sources of marital tension, isn\u2019t her relationship with John doomed either way?<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Lucy makes the same decision as just about every other movie heroine. She chooses John, quits her soul-killing job, and, as Zauner\u2019s song pours over the soundtrack, the two join the crowds lining up for their marriage licenses. But by the time they walk off-screen toward a happy if uncertain future, the song has changed, replaced by the one that inspired it. And Prine\u2019s song sends Lucy and John off on a very different note, one more honest and complicated than Materialists is equipped to handle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Heather Schwedel
\n I Never Expected the Most Controversial New Movie Ending to Be \u2026 in an A24 Rom-Com?
\n Read More<\/b>\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Like \u201cMy Baby (Got Nothing at All),\u201d \u201cIn Spite of Ourselves\u201d is about sticking by the person you love, but while Zauner\u2019s song is aspirational, Prine\u2019s is almost brutally down to earth. Performed with the Arkansas-born folkie Iris DeMent, Prine\u2019s song slots loosely into the tradition of salt-and-pepper duets like Johnny and June Carter Cash\u2019s \u201cJackson\u201d and George and Tammy Wynette\u2019s \u201cWe\u2019re Gonna Hold On,\u201d in which an idealized vision of love collides with its material reality. Prine was never romantically involved with DeMent, but when the song was released in 1999, the 52-year-old had recently married his third wife and survived a bout with neck cancer, and it reflects the weary but triumphant perspective of a man who\u2019s weathered life\u2019s hardships and come out the other side.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

While songwriters, like most artists, tend to concern themselves with beginnings and endings, \u201cIn Spite of Ourselves\u201d is written from the middle, the place where, if we\u2019re lucky, we spend most of our lives. The couple whose voices Prine and DeMent take on have been together for a while\u2014we don\u2019t know how long, but long enough to get on each other\u2019s nerves, and then get used to it. Prine starts off describing his partner with what sounds like a list of complaints, the kinds of things that might not seem like a big deal to anyone else: the way she sits, the way she likes her eggs. But by the time DeMent picks up the story in the second verse, things have gotten grudgingly, if eccentrically, affectionate. \u201cHe ain\u2019t too sharp, but he gets things done,\u201d she sings, \u201cdrinks his beer like it\u2019s oxygen.\u201d<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t the starry-eyed impressions of two people who\u2019ve just met. This is a man and a woman who\u2019ve known each other for years, seen each other at their best and at their worst, and concluded that they love them both the same. They know their quirks and their kinks\u2014he knows she gets turned on by movies about criminals, and she once caught him rifling through her dirty underwear\u2014but that knowledge has only strengthened their bond. They haven\u2019t settled, exactly, but they\u2019ve learned, through time and trial, that real, lasting love is imperfect, and embracing those imperfections is what makes it last. When the two singers jump in together on the song\u2019s chorus, it\u2019s not to proclaim their determination to work through the hard times, George and Tammy style. It\u2019s to acknowledge, more than it is to brag, that this actually is as good as love gets. \u201cAgainst all odds,\u201d they sing, \u201choney, we\u2019re the big door prize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prine\u2019s gruff twang had been made even rougher by his illness, and DeMent\u2019s keening wail is hardly the stuff of mellifluous harmonies. (That\u2019s her high lonesome sound over the opening credits of The Leftovers\u2019 second season, urging audiences to \u201cLet the Mystery Be<\/a>.\u201d) But when they join together, a rough-hewn magic takes hold. They aren\u2019t harmonizing, exactly, just singing the same notes an octave apart, and the synchronization isn\u2019t perfect. \u201cIslands in the Stream\u201d this ain\u2019t, and that\u2019s the beauty of it.<\/p>\n

By the time Lawrence\u2019s Grace and Pattinson\u2019s Jackson get hitched midway through Die My Love, perfection has been off the table for a while. While Grace is pregnant with their first child, the two move from New York City to the isolation of rural Montana, and after the baby is born, Jackson abandons her for long stretches\u2014purportedly because he\u2019s working at some unspecified job, although the spare condoms he keeps in his truck suggest he\u2019s picking up more than the occasional shift. It\u2019s clear long before a chirpy local mom broaches the topic at a party that Grace is suffering from postpartum depression, aggravated by her partner\u2019s inability to help with the burden of new parenthood\u2014or, indeed, to do anything at all. When she complains about being left along during his frequent road trips, he gets her a dog despite her emphatic protests that she doesn\u2019t want another living thing to take care of. (It turns out he\u2019s the one who wants the dog but also expects her to be responsible for it.)<\/p>\n

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    Getting married is a last-ditch effort to patch up their relationship\u2014not a beginning, but an attempt to stave off the end. And as they two-step to \u201cIn Spite of Ourselves,\u201d it seems like they might just have pulled it off. Everything else fades away as the couple dance in their own private world, whispering to each other as confetti falls and their friends clap in slow motion. But then there\u2019s a harsh cut and suddenly Grace is crawling around on the floor to a chaotic punk song. The moment can\u2019t last.<\/p>\n

    They get one more chance to get it back. As they\u2019re driving down the road in frozen silence in the wake of yet another fight, Prine\u2019s voice comes over the radio, and Jackson starts singing along. When DeMent\u2019s voice comes along, Grace joins in, too, her voice soft, her eyes wide open. The song doesn\u2019t take over this time; you can hear it and them both, trying to bring it into their world rather than vanish into its. But they\u2019re too flawed, too far apart. Right before he starts to sing, Jackson promises Grace, \u201cI can try harder,\u201d and you can tell he wants to mean it, just as you know he doesn\u2019t, or he can\u2019t. You can\u2019t force the kind of love \u201cIn Spite of Ourselves\u201d is about. You have to earn it, one day after another, and they\u2019re out of time.<\/p>\n

    Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it came time to commission a new pop song for her bittersweet romance Materialists, Celine Song had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,41751,77,3943,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-556930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-country-music","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115513291500283274","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}