Celine Song’s Materialists is a once in a lifetime sort of romance film that has studied, updated, and elevated the greats of the genre. Bittersweet, perceptive, swooning, sometimes hilarious, and resoundingly human at every turn, Materialists isn’t the romance a lot of viewers might expect from the talent involved, but what they’ll get is an outstanding motion picture that never takes a misstep. Tonally and formally there hasn’t been a cynical leaning romance pitched at this level since James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News almost forty years ago now. It is, in every sense, a new modern American classic.
Lucy (Dakota Johnson) has a job that’s both outdated and sought after. She’s a professional matchmaker for the rich and famous in New York City. While she has to fend off competition from a variety of algorithm based dating apps, her services are still requested by the pickiest of eligible prospects. Her matches have produced nine weddings for clients of the firm she works at, and she’s a bit of a legend in the office. Single by choice and design, Lucy focuses on her work creating attachments for others rather than her own desires. That starts to change when she meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), a charming, wealthy finance guy who flirts heavily, but endearingly at a wedding for one of her clients. Also at the party, but in a much different capacity, is Lucy’s most recent ex-boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), a cater waiter and struggling actor who still lives with several roommates in a tiny apartment. The bond between John and Lucy remains stronger than that of most exes, with the two regularly turning to each other for advice, but her budding relationship with Harry leaves her romantically and materialistically fulfilled.
With conflicting feelings about love starting to impact her work, Lucy doesn’t think she deserves the kind of life Harry could provide her with. And on the other hand, Lucy can’t see herself with the impoverished, but hard working John because it will be hard to envision a financially and emotionally stable life with him. Song presents this romantic quandary throughout Materialists without judgment towards Lucy’s mentality or life choices. While Song (Past Lives) is critical of the kinds of clients Lucy has to deal with in her day job and the unrealistic expectations many have of potential partners, there’s also an understanding that these attitudes of human nature that have existed as long as the species has been on earth, and nothing will change them any time soon. They are ingrained into our collective DNA.
The character of Lucy is fascinatingly layered and nuanced, making great use of Johnson’s unparalleled talent for droll, effortless cool, but imbued with an undercurrent of kindness and compassion beneath her gruff, businesslike mentality. Like many people, Lucy has identified the aspects of the job that she likes and compartmentalized the parts of it that she doesn’t. Her dedication to the craft of matchmaking has seeped over into her personal life, one where she constantly places the needs and desires of others over her own. Eventually, Materialists will find Lucy questioning her client’s overly demanding requests (calling out male clients for being sleazy and shallow, and female clients for being unrealistically specific and calculating, in a memorable few sequences), and a darker twist later on solidifying her belief that this might not be the job for her anymore. Upon first meeting her, Lucy doesn’t seem like the type of person audiences would want to root for, but Song and Johnson build up the character brilliantly, making them invested in her happiness.
Song has pulled off a true casting coup by pairing Johnson alongside Evans and Pascal, producing the most charming onscreen trio this side of Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and William Holden in Sabrina. Just as Song puts Johnson’s talents to perfect use here, so too does the writer-director tap into Evans’ ability to play an emotionally attuned, but socially immature nice guy and Pascal’s knee shaking sexual charms and charming wit. Both of the men in Lucy’s life come with positives and negatives, but neither could be accused of being thin shells of human beings. Just like her, they are full bodied characters with hopes and dreams of their own, making it seem like neither is a wrong choice, and the agony of deciding between the two (or just staying single) all the more satisfying. If Lucy listens to what her job has taught her about lasting love, she would pick Harry in a heartbeat. But if she follows her heart and the nagging voice inside her head that says she doesn’t deserve better, she would lean towards John. She doesn’t want to feel like she’s settling for “the unicorn” that is Harry, but she also – in a nod to the title – doesn’t want to be broke and struggling her entire life.
The second guessing that drives Materialists is both raw and reasoned, matched nicely by Song’s subtle use of classical New York City ambiance. Song’s script and razor sharp editorial choices allow the story room to breathe and for the romantic longing and questioning to fully take root. But Song is also careful to not drag Materialists past a logical breaking point. All of the primary characters in Materialists – including Zoë Winters as one of Lucy’s favourite clients in a pivotal, excellently played role – suffer from crushing degrees of self doubt that make them all relatable, regardless of their income bracket. Although Lucy always maintains that marriage is a business transaction, Materialists always reminds the viewer that there are real people behind the numbers. And those real people don’t always fit the roles they’ve been cast into. It’s a smartly made romance that deals in an inherently unromantic world.
Materialists opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, June 13, 2025.
