"Materialists," "Too Much," and the Modern Rom-Com

The Run-Through with Vogue

Vogue

Fashion & Beauty, Arts

4.1 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 15 August 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today on The Run-Through with Vogue, we bring you an episode from The New Yorker's podcast, Critics at Large.

Audiences have been bemoaning the death of the romantic comedy for years, but the genre persists—albeit often in a different form from the screwballs of the nineteen-forties or the “chick flicks” of the eighties and nineties. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss their all-time favorite rom-coms and two new projects marketed as contemporary successors to the greats: Celine Song’s “Materialists” and Lena Dunham’s “Too Much.” Do these depictions of modern love—or at least the search for it—evoke the same breathless feeling as the classics do? “I wonder if the crisis in rom-coms has to do with a crisis in how adult women want to be or want to see themselves,” Schwartz says. “I think both of these projects are basically trying to speak to the fact that everyone's ideals are in question.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Sex, Love, and the State of the Rom-Com” (The New Yorker)

“Materialists” (2025)

“Too Much” (2025)

“Working Girl” (1988)

“You’ve Got Mail” (1998)

“When Harry Met Sally” (1989)

“Love & Basketball” (2000)

“The Best Man” (1999)

“Our Romance with Jane Austen” (The New Yorker)

“Girls” (2012-17)

“Adam’s Rib” (1949)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi everyone, Chloe here. Today, we wanted to share a great conversation by our wonderful colleagues from the New Yorkers podcast, Critics at Large. Every week, staff writers Vincent Cunningham, Nomi Fry, and Alexander Schwartz, pull up chairs at the Critics Roundtable to dive into the latest pop
0:21.7	culture obsessions across books, film, TV, and more. Since we recently had Celine's song on our show,
0:28.2	we thought you'd love this episode, materialists too much, and the modern rom-com. In the episode,
0:34.4	you'll hear the critics unpack the ever-evolving world of romantic comedies, how the genre has shifted, what's driving its resurgence, and why we're still hooked on stories of love.
0:44.8	Stay tuned for the full conversation, and if you enjoy it, be sure to follow the New Yorkers critics at large wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:57.7	Welcome to the New York to Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker.
1:01.1	I'm Alex Schwartz.
1:02.3	I'm Nomi Fry.
1:03.6	I'm Vincent Cunningham.
1:05.3	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
1:12.8	guys? Doing great. Good. Glad to be back after a week off for our country's holiday.
1:23.9	Our country's holiday. It is what it is. How are you, Vincent?
1:28.1	I'm great.
1:30.0	And I'm excited to celebrate a better holiday.
1:34.4	Because friends, we're gathered here today to discuss.
1:37.5	To celebrate the state of the rom-com.
1:39.5	That's right, the romantic comedy.
1:42.3	They used to be a staple at the box office.
1:53.9	And even though that's not really the case anymore, there has been a trend in the last, I don't know, five, ten years of trying to reimagine the rom-com for today.
1:55.0	Whatever that means.
1:57.4	And by whatever means, possible.
2:02.2	We're going to dig into this a little bit more later in the episode, but let's give the listeners a little teaser.
	...

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