Spoiler warning: This article contains light spoilers for “materialists”, now playing in theaters.
“Matimes”, the follow -up of Céline Song to “Past Lives”, offers a frank overview how money and the financial situation influence modern meetings. Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is a contribution that customers often have strict income expectations for their hypothetical partners, just like Lucy herself. She wants the stability of wealth, and she knows. This is what everyone strives from the rarefied world of New Yorkers in the upper class.
The representation of the film of New York geography serves its examination of socio-economic differences. “The film is a question of class, and the districts in which everyone lives talks about their class, like immediately,” says the decorator of the play Amy Silver (“The Beguiled”, “On the rocks”, “The Mastermind”).
There are various apartments shown in the film, and the net contrasts between the interior of a penthouse belonging to Harry (Pedro Pascal) and the shabby excavations that John (Chris Evans) shares with roommates is absurd and faithful to life.
Silver worked with a frequent collaborator, the production designer Anthony Gasparro (“types of kindness”, “appear”, “The Mastermind”), to create apartments. The pair spoke with Variety To decompose the way they gathered the apartments shown in the film, including what each living space says about the character’s lifestyle – and also how much they think that this character pays in rent. In addition, they immerse themselves in the locations of weddings and love the office.
Lucy’s apartment
Location: Brooklyn Heights
Rent estimate: $ 3,200 / month
The script was originally Lucy living in Greenpoint, according to Gasparro, but none of the places there worked. The team also examined Williamsburg before setting up on Brooklyn Heights. “It’s not Brooklyn Heights proper. It’s Brooklyn Heights, between Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, “explains Gasparro. Lucy’s place was one of the last locations that the team has found since they looked for something that seemed unique to other Rom-Com films.
Above all, it had to be “something she could also afford,” says Silver. “But his apartment was very taken into account. You can’t see much in the film, but what you see, everything was very considered and designed.”
And the decor had to be “choices that it could afford,” says Gasparro. “Maybe she spent a little more money on the table, but had IKEA cutlery. She probably didn’t spend much time there, so it’s definitely on the smaller side. And we use the fire escape as a place where she would like it and think or had a cigarette.”
Silver’s favorite detail of all sets is the makeup where Lucy is seated at the start of the film. She found this office in Hudson, ny. “It is an office that belonged to Norman Rockwell,” explains Silver. “It was this very beautiful Victorian desk in the shape of a kidney painted white with a mirror top, a top in old mirror silver. And it was so beautiful. And I loved that it was the only thing in his apartment that was all ages.”
The two craftsmen emphasize how tiny space was. “It was like the size of a laptop. It was great that Shabier Kirchner – Many director of photographs would say no because he is so small – but he really adopted his little size, “says Gasparro. “And how did it make sense to exactly what Amy was talking about, like:” Well, what can she afford? “We were trying to be as realistic as possible, because she says she earns $ 80,000 a year.
Lucy’s decision to live in this neighborhood indicates aspirations of wealth, even if it is not much at home. “Brooklyn Heights is also a truly rich neighborhood, but it lives on the outskirts of it. So I think it speaks to [how] She would live in an apartment talking to people who have money, ”explains Silver.
“She also wants to be close to a metro, and she does not want to live on the outdoor districts because she wants to be so close to Manhattan and the office loves,” adds Gasparro. “Even if she could get a bigger apartment in Sunset Park twice, she would never be satisfied with this. She wants to have a smaller apartment that is closer to the atmosphere of Manhattan.”
Atsushi nishijima
Harry Penthouse
Location: Tribeca
Rent estimate: He has the apartment.
With the $ 12 million Harry penthouse, the team needed to find something with “a wealth and the aesthetics that was going to talk about who Harry was as a character. There is a sophistication. It’s almost tailor -made. It’s incredibly tasteful, ”says Gasparro.
They looked for something with the right scale and the right size to accommodate filming for a long time, especially in the bedroom, the living room and the kitchen. It was difficult to find something in this state, but once they locked one, “we knew that it was going to be one of the tent posts on the way the rest of the film was going to look,” added Gasparro.
Atsushi nishijima
Harry’s penthouse is real and a family actually lives in this space. The money crossed and removed everything that seemed oriented towards the family, in order to transform it into a baccalaureate. She describes the style of Harry’s square as a “quiet luxury”.
“The apartment especially had a lot of neutrals and really talked to a sensitivity of the design of the 2010s probably, and there were a lot of really special antiques. Lighting there was a lot of Italian lighting and Charlotte Perriand’s sconces on the wall, ”says Silver. “Nothing was advertising great designers, but everything that was quite special and expensive.”
Atsushi nishijima
The team could not really build anything in this space in addition to a new headboard and a new bed for Harry’s bedroom, which was necessary because they turned in this room for a while. “We were limited with what we were able to do there because the walls were plastered, so we could not put anything on the walls. Amy therefore had this idea of building this giant headboard and bringing the beautiful leaves and all the bedding for that, “says Gasparro.
Atsushi nishijima
John apartment
Location: Sunset
Rent estimate: $ 3,400 / month between all roommates
John’s apartment was built in a Long Island City studio, although the outside is Sunset Park. Song shared photographs from a place where her husband, Justin Kuritzkes, formerly lived, as a reference point for the dilapidated apartment. “We also had an excellent crew, an excellent construction, a picturesque team that gathered this. We therefore continued to build in all this wear and tear that these apartments throughout the city would have with several entering and outgoing roommates, ”explains Gasparro.
The craftsmen have tried to incorporate details that reflect what “a very traditional lazy owner would do”, he says, in particular: a painted intercom, ugly sconces, pipes with paint that is unleashed and a dilapidated air conditioner.
“It is really this kind of apartment in which you could only imagine that New York people would dare to live, as if there was no living room. There is just a strip of walls and a sofa, and there is a bathroom,” said Silver. “”[John’s] The apartment was the best of the house because he lived there the most, so he had these windows. »»
Silver remembers that the right decoration keys. “It was fun to literally get the cheapest things that we could find at Home Depot, Ikea, Army Army, and in a way, making it appear aesthetic, but also having a bay. Like that, ”says Silver.
At one point, John stands on the sink in the bathroom and cannot close the mirror. It opens, no matter how many times he pushes him back. This detail was in the script, says Gasparro. “Amy found the perfect mirror, then we did a little – in fact, no, I think it came like that. In the end, we didn’t even have to give it a kind of rigging, ”he says.
During the life process, the team has drawn all the space with adhesive tape. “We would record where the sink would be, where he would go up on the condom, where the kitchen would be. So we presented it as this giant plan on a scale, and we would travel Céline through her and Shabier, “says Gasparro. “And then we designed it mainly from zero, then we made sure that he had just the right amount of space so that Shabier does the camera and everything happens, and we really kept it on the smaller side so that it definitively reads the narrow and the unpleasant.”
Silver says that “it was not like a fantasy of what it is to live in New York. It was actually in a very realistic way, like, this is how three people who do not have much money live in this space which is almost impossible to live. ”
Sophie’s apartment
Location: West village
Rent estimate: $ 6,800 / month
Sophie lives in a two -bed bin in “one of the most beautiful streets in New York”, describes Silver. This street is world -renowned, thanks to Carrie Bradshaw.
“I think these are two houses from the famous” Sex and the City “house. Perry Street. “She spent a little more money. She had more money than Lucy, so she had more buildings. “Oh, the West Village would be the ideal place for it,” continues Gasparro.
Viewers especially see Sophie’s cuisine, but even this overview is in correlation with what we know about the character. “The idea around her space was that she had money, but she was also a bit of a virgin slate. [which] was filled with more idiosyncratic furniture. Sophie’s apartment was very simple and clean and very pleasant, ”explains Silver.
Other locations
The “materialists”, of course, displays the wedding culture and all its greatness. “Weddings all take place in Midtown, around Central Park, like New York classic, each time you see a film, when you see Central Park and Fifth Avenue, not the Midtown which is Herald Square, but closer to Central Park, which is a little higher,” said Gasparro.
Think: the Plaza Hotel. Gasparro remembers how the film was shot during the peak wedding season, which limited its location options. “We had to combine a few hotels to give the impression that it was a place,” he says.
As for Lucy’s workplace, loves: “We have always thought that it would be a central place in New York, which has a kind of dynamic heart rate and an excellent location,” explains Gasparro. “So we decided to shoot Soho. But we were also looking at Union Square.”
Additional shooting spots: “Many locations for restaurants were also either in Tribeca or Lower Manhattan. And then John’s World, like the theater, his apartment, was all based in Sunset Park or other parts of Brooklyn. And then we have Central Park, ”explains Gasparro.
