How Celine Song's Materialists is an inadvertent, sharp feminist response to Sandeep Reddy Vanga's Animal

Celine Song's films, whether it's Past Lives or Materialists, underline the dilemma of the modern woman — how much to love, how much to work, what to hold on to, what to let go of.

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They're a woman's attempts to elbow and make space for herself in a man’s world — without cutting any corners in the departments of both love and self-respect. Her new romantic movie begins in the pre-historic era where a caveman drags the raw carcass of his prey to his den, where the cavewoman waits. But their exchange isn't limited to the carnal need of hunger: He also makes a ring out of flowers and makes her wear that as the title Materialists pop up across the screen.