This movie has been on my radar for a long time now. When I heard that the writer/director of Past Lives was making another film, I was automatically onboard. I absolutely adored that movie (you can read my review here) and I was really, really looking forward to this one. But opening weekend, I started to see mixed opinions online. Some people loved it and some people hated it. I thought it was supposed to be a fairly generic romcom so I couldn’t understand how it could possibly be so polarizing. My curiosity only increased. I thought I would love Materialists for the beautiful, potentially heartbreaking, romance story (like Past Lives). But what I actually really liked was the commentary on modern dating. The main character’s love life isn’t even the driving force of the plot. Her job is. Apparently, people were upset or felt duped because the film was marketed as a romcom but it wasn’t actually a romcom. There definitely isn’t a lot of com. There’s not even that much rom. But that doesn’t necessarily make it bad. It just makes it unexpected. And, for my money, more interesting and timely than a traditional romcom.

The plot summary of Materialists reads like your basic romcom. Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a professional matchmaker, who finds herself caught between Harry (Pedro Pascal), a private-equity broker with a $12 million apartment, and John (Chris Evans), an aspiring theater actor with no money and two roommates. Your classic love triangle setup. Who will she choose? The rich guy who can sweep her off her feet and give her anything she could ever want or the poor guy who has nothing to offer her but his undying love? Well, this isn’t that kind of movie. The men don’t fight over her. They barely fight for her. And it’s not really ever a question who she’ll end up with. Instead, the movie functions as a meditation on modern dating with Lucy at the center wondering who she is and what she’s doing with her life and if her career as a matchmaker is “wrong”. The film works best when that’s the story it’s trying to tell. But, unfortunately, can’t break enough from romcom storytelling conventions to dive fully into Lucy’s character study and wraps up with a fairytale ending instead of giving Lucy’s existential crisis real closure.

After the success of Past Lives, Celine Song was able to procure more serious star power for her second feature. Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal are all hot commodities right now (also someone on Letterboxd reminded me that they’re all superheroes: Dakota played Madame Web (lol), Chris played Captain America for many, many years, and Pedro is about to be Mister Fantastic in the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps later this summer. That has nothing to do with this movie but just thought it was a funny coincidence. Or maybe it shows how all the top stars these days become superheroes… or being a superhero makes you a top star? A thought exercise for another time). But fame factor doesn’t always translate to on-screen performance. Let’s just get right into it. Can Dakota Johnson actually act? I’m not so sure. I find her endlessly fascinating as a human being. She’s so odd and offbeat in a way that often comes across as funny even though I can’t tell if she’s even trying to be funny. That’s just how she is. And I support her as a celebrity and a personality. But as a serious actress… I don’t know. She’s not awful in this, but she’s not great. Even Pedro Pascal, who is ridiculously charming, felt a little dull somehow. Both of their performances are impenetrable in a way that prevented me from feeling any authentic connection and chemistry between them. Which is especially strange after seeing their press tour where they do have an undeniable spark. It’s not exactly romantic, but it’s more energized than what they’re giving in the film. Chris Evans is the only one who felt kind of human. He brings real emotion and gravitas to his performance on a resonant level. He’s had a real slump in his career since leaving the Marvel world and I was thrilled to see him doing some genuinely good, moving acting. I hope he gets the chance to showcase these skills more in the future.

The acting performances were not helped by dialogue I found to be pretty tough. Sometimes it was very blunt and on the nose. Like the amount of times Harry actually said, “I’m rich” or when Lucy said to John, “I don’t want to hate you because you’re poor”. Some of it was just a little too direct and could’ve used some nuance. But then other times, it would swing all the way to the other end of the spectrum with people just immediately diving into these deep monologues in regular conversation. No one would ever talk like that. I get that people do speak in a way that’s more embellished in movies and TV. Of course it’s more entertaining that way and we get beautiful conversations and quotes that live on. But this felt really forced. Like they wanted to make deep and profound statements on life and love but were trying way too hard. I felt it when John said to Lucy, “When I see your face, I see wrinkles and gray hair and children that look like you.” And when Lucy gives her matchmaker spiel to a group of women at a wedding where she says, “You’re looking for a nursing home partner and a grave buddy.” And in most of Harry and Lucy’s interactions where they go back and forth in perfect banter. I love a good synchronized banter. Humans are not that witty and sharp in regular conversation. But if the interaction is good, it doesn’t matter if it’s realistic. We’re totally mesmerized and hooked. The problem with the attempt at witty banter in Materialists is that if you start to think about how unrealistic it sounds, it’s not good enough to pull you in. I personally just found it especially disappointing from the person who wrote dialogue like “I liked you for who you are; and who you are is a person who leaves. But for him, you’re the person who stays,” and “You dream in a language I can’t understand. It’s like there’s this whole place inside you I can’t go,” and “You make my world so much bigger and I’m wondering if I do the same for you?” in Past Lives. Quotes that are not only beautiful, but that are simultaneously simple and that you also viscerally feel like a punch to the gut.

I feel like I’ve been a little critical of the movie so far so I do want to give it a compliment here and say that it looks beautiful. The cinematography is dreamy and has this haze and grit, even when depicting sleek imagery, that Past Lives also employed. I always love romanticizing New York and I appreciate that Celine Song does too. The aesthetic and styling are also great and Dakota looks so chic in a really simple and attainable way. She’s an average woman trying to appeal to the wealthy and I think the styling pulls that off. Celine said Lucy probably buys her clothes from Aritzia so that’s probably why I, famous Aritzia stan, loved her looks. I’m also on record as being anti-bang but I will say Dakota’s hair looked great as well. The length and cut and gloss made me envious.

And continuing with the positives, here’s where I think the movie really shines. As a single woman in her late 20s trying to date in New York City, I’ve almost never felt more seen by a film. All of the conversations and ideas around dating spoke to me directly. In the matchmaking world of the movie, clients are talked about like property. People are commodities defined by their on-paper attributes. They (and their matchmakers) have to figure out how to market themselves to the world and to potential matches. When the movie launched a website as part of their marketing where single men could submit their traits and their responses were fed into a live, real-time ticker ranking them, I thought it was just a fun stunt. But after seeing the film, I realize how much more sense it makes. The movie is all about the intersection of stock value and dating. A24 (the studio behind the film) also shared a list of Celine Song’s references when working on the movie. The list includes five Jane Austen adaptations, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Gosford Park, and Emma. Song says, “Materialists is a kind of Victorian romance, because it’s about the marriage market, the way that they always are.” In Jane Austen’s world, class and finance and wealth informed romance. And back then, it was overt. People married within their pedigree and financial agreements were part of the marriage arrangement. Today, people’s preferences haven’t changed, and neither has the conversation really. We just use different words to talk about it. And we have more criteria for determining the value of certain stocks. In that way, Materialists represents both an antiquated and completely modern view of dating.

It seems like everyone has unrealistic standards and expectations in dating. In a funny-(and also sad)-because-it’s-true series of scenes where Lucy meets with her clients, they all run through the laundry list of their must-haves in a partner, including attributes like height, salary, job, BMI, physical appearance, age, likes, dislikes, etc., etc. The movie is obsessed with money. And height. Both come up an absurd amount and in sometimes absurd ways. I really liked the editing and style of these scenes showing both men and women being completely unreasonable when it comes to looking for a partner. It marries the off-beat humor of the movie with the fatalistic commentary on the state of the dating market. Celine Song told Variety, “the reason why I made the film and the reason why the movie is a must see is because it is going to be really frank about how modern dating feels. It’s like the famous TikTok sound: [in a singsong tone] “I’m looking for a man in finance, trust fund, 6’ 5,” blue eyes.” It’s the way that the dating world already speaks. Everybody has already been commodifying and objectifying each other and ourselves. The way that the clients and Lucy talk in the film about these numbers — height, weight, income, age — it’s already a part of culture when it comes to the dating market. But the way it plays out, inevitably, is going to lead to dehumanization. And I think that is completely worth talking about in a romance film.” This worldview is shown in the film through the matchmaking service but, in (my) reality, that’s how it is on dating apps. You see a profile with all of that standard info and judge people based on only that. Even in direct mirror to the film, the apps tell you who they think your most compatible matches are and some will even show you “standout” potential matches, what the Materialists matchmakers would refer to as “unicorns”. But courtship can’t be solely about your profile. It’s about a vibe and connection with another person. Not their statistics. Not if a match makes sense or is “good value. It should be about the feeling. But the apps have everyone too obsessed with the math. Celine said it best: it’s dehumanizing. Dating apps and their algorithms have warped the way people today think and date and think about dating. Swiping left and right is like a game with no consequences and humans are reduced to just data on a screen. And as apps have become the most prominent mode of dating, we’ve lost the ability to meet in person and form organic connections. People have always been shallow. But the apps make it even more upfront. It’s taken all of the chemistry out of dating, something the movie is lacking as well. Maybe it’s meant to be intentionally reflective of the modern dating world in that way. All of this could not be more true to my current experience and makes eerily similar points to the same issues I bemoan constantly.

Can a movie like Materialists really have a happy ending? It tries to. But the entire film is infused with such a cynical view of love and relationships, it’s hard to leave feeling uplifted. I’m not even sure Lucy believes in love. When she and John watch a wedding from afar towards the end of the film, Lucy narrates her version of the newlyweds’ story which ends with them hating each other and getting divorced. And at the matchmaking service, the clients are all getting married because it’s a good match or for whatever ulterior motives they have (like making their sister jealous) that aren’t love. Honestly, most of the reasons people in the film seek out partners and marriage is out of their own fears. Fear of feeling worthless, of dying alone. Wanting to have value and wanting other people to value you is the force that pushes all of the characters into dating and into relationships. Those are real and valid feelings but they’re not enough to create a lasting bond. The film ultimately comes to a resolution where Lucy chooses love over money but pretty reluctantly? Definitely not forcefully enough to drive home the message that love is more important than everything else. The ending is more like ”we’re going to try this but it might not work out.” Which is fine. It’s realistic. But it’s not a big, sweeping romance. It’s not a declaration that love conquers all. I guess Past Lives doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending depending how you look at it, but it just feels ten times more romantic overall and reinforces the power of love. The full body emotion of it is so much more palpable there versus here where it’s more like “yeah, sure”.

I think I did like Materialists. It’s been a while since I’ve run home from the theater with so many thoughts and ideas on a movie I just could not wait to write down. It was not the romcom I was expecting but maybe it was the cynical dating commentary I needed? The Hollywood Reporter summarized the film as being about “the challenges of finding a partner in an unaffordable city”. Like, yeah that’s pretty much my life these days. So maybe the acting isn’t top tier and the dialogue is a little blunt and the leg lengthening confession was kind of insane and the movie is pushing a broke boy agenda that I don’t know if I’m on board with. I can move past all that to appreciate what the movie does successfully. And that’s make me, a single gal in NYC, feel seen. Thanks, Celine Song, for making me believe in heart wrenching, world-spanning love with Past Lives and then bringing me back down to the coldest reality with Materialists. We love a creator with range. So, all that being said, should I hire a matchmaker? I know that’s like anti the point of the movie but, considering the state of things in the dating world, it really doesn’t seem like a bad option right now. Oh and go see Materialists! I think it’s worth the watch.

2025 Count: 42 movies, 30 seasons of television, 3 specials