Materialists is a film with a classic screwball setup: a young, beautiful matchmaker meets the charming, rich man of her dreams on the same night she runs into her broke, handsome ex-boyfriend. But Celine Song’s sophomore feature takes a more dry, dramatic approach to explore dating in the modern world. Channeling Jane Austen, Materialists discusses relationships like a numbers game where height, income, and age are the key factors to dating success. Every moment we spend with our heroine Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is dominated by the most clinical judgments of men, women, and especially herself. When wealthy finance guy Harry (Pedro Pascal) takes her out to dinner, Lucy describes herself as a failed actress and college dropout with debt and an $80K salary (before taxes). Why be with her when he could be with someone ten years younger who doesn’t need to work for a living and has way more time to have children? This isn’t just her attitude. Nearly everyone in the film shares her point of view: men are commodities and women must fight for them, with their value decreasing each passing day. Being single is a curse on women that gets even worse once they pass the age of thirty.
Lucy is looking for love, but not for herself––her most recent client, Sophie (Zoë Winters), keeps getting rejected by dates. As frustration mounts, Lucy must also deal with her ex-boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), who sees things progressing with her and Harry and doesn’t want to let her slip away again. But John is a struggling actor with multiple roommates and only $2,000 to his name. Sure, he’s handsome, has good politics, and is a great listener, but in the world of Materialists, that’s just not enough to make him a catch. In this cynical world, nice people like Sophie and John are at the bottom of the dating food chain. Lucy isn’t considered much higher, but her skillset as a matchmaker lends some sense of romantic authority.
Song’s screenplay models Lucy after Austen heroines like Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot––the latter previously played by Johnson in 2022’s Persuasion––but there’s something off about the character. Johnson is good in this role, doing her best with dialogue that sounds more self-loathing than savvy. She brings an easy humor to every scene she’s in, and challenges co-stars to match her. While Pascal is the best at keeping up, playing Harry with charm and vulnerability, Evans struggles a bit as John, awkwardly tripping into the role of romantic lead. We should feel the heat when Evans and Johnson are onscreen together; there’s mostly distance. Johnson’s more physical, realistic performance is never fully matched by his lovesick monologues.
Aside from one very funny reveal in the film’s final third, Materialists is a romantic comedy with shockingly little humor, mistaking cruelty for sharp social satire. Yes, many people are shallow and have impossible standards for what they look for in a partner. Many are selfish, abusive, judgmental, and classist, and there is an honesty in showing the uglier side of dating in a romantic comedy. Yet the film still bears some responsibility to create a place and people that we enjoy experiencing. Lucy is a compelling heroine, but it’s hard to imagine audiences remembering John or Harry fondly like a Darcy or Wentworth. Authors like Austen, Edith Wharton, and Henry James crafted worlds so vivid that filmmakers jumped at the chance to adapt them. Despite the social constrictions and marginalization of their heroines, there is something special about these stories––they leave us both moved and entertained. And whatever it is, Materialists does not have it.
Materialists is now in theaters.
The post Materialists Review: A Cynical Rom-Com Missing the Right Ingredients first appeared on The Film Stage.
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