Have you been out there on the dating scene? It’s rough. You don’t need me to tell you that swiping right on dating apps has made us evaluate potential partners differently. When all you need to do is swipe right or left, what kind of value are you putting on that person? Or on yourself? People become only about their stats: how much money they make, how tall they are, how young they are, how “fit” they are. Stats are for baseball, not for dating. Celine Song’s follow-up to her brilliant, soulful Past Lives has been pushed as a ’90s-style rom-com, but Materialists isn’t really that. It’s Song taking yet another deep dive at modern dating, only through the prism of matchmakers whose sole job it is to find true love by digging through said stats like Brad Pitt in Moneyball.
Materialists is a much bigger, slicker film from Song, and one designed to be more mainstream. That’s a bit of a double-edged sword, though. While it guarantees Song a lot more attention, the film is also less substantial, feeling thinned out to affect the right crowd reaction, which is to have everyone leave happy. The characters are also slight, lacking the depth to truly be authentic. That said, it also has an abundance of charm thanks to the casting of Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal, playing familiar characters in a romantic scenario we’ve been watching play out since we were kids.
Johnson plays Lucy, a romantic matchmaker so good at her job that she’s seen nine of her couples tie the knot. But don’t think this is like one of those speed dating services or some cheapy matchmaking outfit. Lucy’s clientele is the rich and elite, and they all are looking for the perfect match, someone who “checks all of the boxes” as we hear so often. Lucy is a lot like her clientele. She sees relationships as transactional, a business deal, so to speak. Her job is to find people whose interests, wealth, and looks align; she has to find value in each person even when they seemingly have little. Both genders come across looking like shallow a-holes. The men, they tend to only want women who are young and hot, literally refusing in some cases to see a woman who might be a year outside of their target. Heaven forbid she be 30! Women don’t look good in this, either. They want men who are fabulously wealthy and extremely tall. On this note I can agree with them. There’s nothing uglier than a couple where the woman is much taller than the guy. Ugh.
At a wedding for one of her clients, Lucy meets what they call in her trade a “unicorn”. Henry Castillo (Pascal), a handsome, grotesquely rich wiz in private equity. He comes from old money. He begins flirting with her immediately. She dismisses the idea of them being together, noting that she has nothing of material value to contribute. She talks of dowries…”Do I look like I need a dowry?” he asks. Henry already has everything of material value that he could ever need. He genuinely likes Lucy, but she would rather he become a client. Just then, Lucy encounters her ex, John (Evans), a waiter with the catering company, a failed actor, who lives with roommates in a shitty apartment and still drives the same old car he’s always had. Without saying a word, he brings her favorite drinks, a Coke and a beer.
We’ve all had those pangs of what was comfortable and familiar. Lucy, who is eventually won over to date Henry after he lavished her with fancy gifts and expensive dinners, nevertheless keeps in touch with John after their encounter. What emerges is something like a love triangle, and one that we have a pretty good idea of how it’ll play out. Lucy is going to have to choose between the financial stability and practicality of Henry, or being with John whom she clicks with in every respect except for one. He’s poor, and will probably always be poor. It’s why they broke up. While she loves him, arguing with John over $25 gets tired really quickly.
This love triangle scenario isn’t anything we haven’t seen before. Shit, even John Hughes used to do it in high school comedies. Not to say that Song’s narrative is juvenile or anything. It’s actually quite refreshing that she offers this modern, if jaded, look at modern dating where love never factors into the equation, only business transactions. Song doesn’t play gender favorites, either. Lucy doesn’t always come across great. She can be cold, ruthless, too businesslike with matters of the heart. And John, as much as we might want to root for the working-class underdog, is bitter and angry. Henry is safe, and…well, who wants to be constantly comparing themselves to someone who appears to be so perfect?
Song’s graceful visual style is a real plus. New York City has rarely looked so beautiful, and like a place where fairy tale romances can indeed happen. It doesn’t hurt that the Materialists cast is also gorgeous. Although, and maybe this is just me nitpicking, but I don’t think any of the three leads had to stretch very much for this one. They all are playing character types we’ve seen from them before and that in itself is kind of soothing, too. We already like these actors coming in, and they’re telling a fairly breezy love story.
Song tries to throw a monkey wrench in the design with a subplot involving one of Lucy’s hopeless clients, Sophie (Succession‘s Zoe Winters), who devalues herself and endures the cruel reality of modern dating in New York. It pays off better in the end than the build-up would suggest, although it also doesn’t jibe with the tone of the movie which is pretty light.
It’s unfair to compare Materialists to Past Lives, although that’s what most people will do. Heck, even I did it when I first sat down to watch it, then again after it was over. Materialists is also a story about love and following our heart, even when it’s hard, but it’s simply a less meaningful, enduring movie. However, it’s also more marketable, lighter on its feet, and shows that Song can skillfully maneuver her way through anything as a storyteller. No matter what, Song is always going to be a filmmaker who checks most of the boxes.
A24 releases Materialists in theaters on June 13th.
