Materialists' big twist: Pedro Pascal's character asks whether we can really accept people's past

When Materialists reaches its biggest emotional moment, it doesn't blow up; it peels back the layers. Pedro Pascal's Harry doesn't admit to cheating, lying, or keeping a secret wife. He only shows a quieter version of himself; thinner, less sure, almost hidden in a dating scene that judges men by height and bank account balance.

The fact that he had leg-lengthening surgery years ago isn't packaged as shame or scandal. Lucy's response, slow, tight, almost silent, is what sticks with you. It forces you to ask whether you can genuinely embrace someone else's history once it stops matching your dream.

Lucy sees the scars, then can’t unsee them

For most of the movie, Lucy (Dakota Johnson) lives by a strict playbook. As a pro matchmaker, she views love as a checklist and attraction as a bundle of traits that can be sorted in neat columns. Harry ticks every box: rich, generous, well-travelled, and a genuine fellow.

Then she spots the scars. What unfolds next isn't betrayal; it is doubt. Lucy never screams, accuses, or polishes an angry goodbye, yet she does not linger. Minutes after hearing the full story, she ends things.

She swears the surgery itself isn't the issue. The timing leaves both of them gritting their teeth. Harry sees it, too, and that is the quiet blow. The film's real twist is simple: desire shatters the moment the illusion of effortlessness cracks.

Can intimacy survive disclosure?

Harry isn't hiding anything from Lucy. His scars were always going to be there to be seen. He lays out the story without blinking, even kneeling so she can picture the height he lost. He's not begging for pity. It's just one quick crack in the armor of a man who has worked hard to carry on with pride.

But the way Lucy reacts shows something just as raw, the awkward jolt of realizing the person we love had to fight, and maybe change, to become the version we fell for. She praises the procedure as a good investment in his future, and she sounds like a consultant handing down a glowing report. Yet personally, the same words leave a sour twist in her stomach.

Instead of clear answers, the moment hands her a knotted question she never asked for. Instead of a neat legend, it throws back real flesh and doubt. That push-pull is exactly what Materialists wants to poke at. It doesn't bother debating whether Harry's choice was wise; it wonders whether Lucy, and by extension the audience, can stare at a partner's past without allowing it to redraw the present.

A question with no safe answer in Materialists

There's no clear bad guy in the story. Lucy isn't vicious, and Harry isn't neatly deceitful either. Yet when they bump heads over one little thing, a tweak to his body, a truth told too late, they prove just how fragile their dreamy trust is. When we say we want honest talk, what do we picture?

Do we really picture the raw facts, or just the tidy version that won't crack the ideal image we've already fallen for? Harry, as written by Pascal, isn't begging Lucy to forgive him. He's hoping she'll simply keep him with all his messy updates. Lucy never slams the door, yet she takes a careful step back from a road that now looks winding instead of straight.

And maybe choosing distance in that moment is honest, too. Materialists never really fixes the knot between them, and that's what lodges the story in your mind.

The late twist doesn't just pull the rug from under Harry; it yanks it from under us, laying bare the hang-ups and soft limits we'd rather ignore. Love asks us to welcome someone, their flaws, and surprises. But Materialists quietly wonder if we will accept whoever shows up, or if we secretly pray the test never arrives.