WARNING: SPOILERS ahead for Materialists.
The plot twist surrounding Pedro Pascal’s Harry in Celine Song’s 2025 romantic drama Materialists has received a mixed reception from viewers, with some even considering it controversial. While Dakota Johnson leads the cast of Materialists, Pascal plays a crucial supporting character named Harry, a wealthy businessman who becomes a love interest of Johnson’s protagonist Lucy. A professional matchmaker who works for the fictional boutique dating service Adore, Lucy meets Harry at a wedding for one of her clients. Harry is what Lucy calls a “unicorn”, a man who has it all and appears too good to be true.
After a few dates spent evaluating what each is looking for in a partner, Harry and Lucy start to become an official item, with plans to travel to Iceland. As the тιтle of the film suggests, Lucy is quite admittedly superficial, having broken up with her ex-boyfriend, Chris Evans’ John, not because she fell out of love with him, but because he didn’t make enough money by her standards. Lucy realizes through her fling with Harry that all the money in the world still won’t make her happy, a realization that arrives at an awkward moment in the middle of the night after discovering a surprising truth about Harry.
Materialists Reveals Pedro Pascal’s Harry Had Leg-Lengthening Surgery
Harry Went To Extreme Lengths To Become More Desirable
Pascal’s Harry may be a unicorn in Materialists, but he reveals to Lucy that he wasn’t born that way. While he’s still handsome, wealthy, and kind, he tells Lucy that he got leg-lengthening surgery years before the two of them met, changing his height from 5′ 6″ to 6 feet. Lucy discovers this by noticing scars on Harry’s legs one night while sleeping at his $12 million Manhattan penthouse.
Harry wakes up suddenly and catches her looking at his scars, which inspires him to put on pants. He appears defensive over his scars, but not necessarily in a way that suggests he was hiding them, since Lucy would have inevitably found out eventually. The two then have a conversation about the scars in Harry’s kitchen, during which Harry bends his knees to show Lucy was his original height was, bringing him to her eye level. Harry notes that before he got the procedure, he found talking to girls very difficult. After the surgery, however, girls began approaching him, and his life was forever changed.
Although Lucy doesn’t admit that Harry’s leg-lengthening surgery is the reason, she breaks up with Harry by the end of the nighttime kitchen scene. In just a matter of minutes, she tells Harry that she no longer wants to go to Iceland with him and concludes that she doesn’t love him, and he doesn’t love her. The abrupt nature of Lucy’s decision makes Harry believe that it has to be because of the surgery, even though Lucy insists that it’s not. Still, Lucy is self-admittedly cold, and just because she didn’t say it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Why Materialists’ Leg-Lengthening Storyline Has Divided Audiences
Lucy Applauds Harry’s Decison As A Good Investment But May Have Left Him Because Of It
Materialists moviegoers had an overall mixed reaction to Lucy breaking up with Harry so soon after finding out about his surgery. On the one hand, Lucy states that it’s not because of the surgery, and it’s just because she realized she doesn’t love him. In fairness, she can only speak for herself, so her ᴀssertion that Harry doesn’t actually love her is not necessarily proof and could be somewhat manipulative, especially since Harry revealed that finding love is both a challenge and a mystery to him.
It’s hard not to ᴀssume that Lucy was turned off by the revelation that Harry was not a natural unicorn but a manufactured one.
On the other hand, it’s hard not to ᴀssume that Lucy was turned off by the revelation that Harry was not a natural unicorn but a manufactured one. If this is in fact the reason why Lucy breaks up with Harry, well, then it’s not incredibly shocking, since she makes decisions about her relationships based on superficial and materialistic things, not based on true love or human connection (until the end of Materialists, that is).
As the saying goes, “all’s fair in love and war,” and the so-called dating expert Lucy learns the hard way that, even when she thinks she can break matchmaking down to a science and play Cupid, there are forces and feelings outside of her control. No one can necessarily control who or what they are attracted to, and Lucy finding out about Harry’s surgery was likely a red flag or an “ick”, for whatever reason.
This point, however, does highlight a common consensus that taller men have an advantage in the dating sphere, which is portrayed as a tough and unavoidable part of finding love in Materialists. Of course, this won’t apply to everyone, and this notion is certainly non-inclusive and potentially harmful. That said, some things are simply part of human nature, and it can be difficult to explain something as primal as attraction.
What Celine Song Has Said About Materialists’ Pedro Pascal Twist
She Wanted To Exemplify How Men Are “Crushed” By Dating As Well As Women
Materialists writer/director Celine Song elaborates on why she included this aspect of Harry’s character, as it points to the inevitable ways that human beings objectify each other in the modern dating market. “What’s most important about that surgery is that this movie is about the way that we commodify and objectify each other in the dating market, how much it crushes all of us, and I want it to be fair to men too.”
Even if Lucy could understand Harry’s choice on a professional level, it may not have worked for her on a personal one.
Song notes how men, like women, also face pressures to enhance their value in the dating market. “I feel like men are also very much crushed by the dating market as well. You get to see that Harry, who seemed like he was above it all, I think it turns out that he’s crushed by it as well.” However, Song notes that when Lucy first hears about Harry’s surgery, she considers it a good investment. Even if Lucy could understand Harry’s choice on a professional level, it may not have worked for her on a personal one.
Is Materialists’ Leg-Lengthening Surgery Real?
Yes & It Has Become More Popular In Recent Years
The leg-lengthening surgery discussed in Materialists is a real-life procedure. In layman’s terms, a person’s leg bones are intentionally broken, and rods are inserted that allow the bone to regrow and extend the length of the limbs.
According to NBC News, “The $75,000, four-hour operation, which is not generally covered by insurance, involves cutting the thigh bones in each leg and inserting rods inside them. Then over the next three to four months, the rods are lengthened by up to 1 millimeter (0.04 inches) per day, via an external remote control. New bone grows over the rods.” As demonstrated in Materialists, the procedure has become more popular in recent years, even when there is no medical need for it.
Source: NBC News
