"Marriage is a business deal"—Celine Song's anticipated follow-up to her buzzy Past Lives (2023), Materialists underlines this idea often. Its heroine, Lucy, (Dakota Johnson), a match-maker in New York City, swears by it. Balancing modern-age cynicism with a stray dash of old-fashioned romantic mystery, Materialists works its charm while being aware of the regular romcom impulses. Song’s screenplay scans contemporary disillusionment with romance. Where does love stand in an age with money dictating every choice? Materialists is a light-footed takedown of late-capitalist economy, packed with charm and candor. Song takes a hard, biting look, poking through the dreamy façade of glossy romcoms and the ideals they sell. Materialists sashays between detachment and throbbing intimacy. It asks big, unwieldy questions around love, loneliness and individual desires—all in a whisper.
Eagle-eyed, Lucy gently redirects her clients to recognize their needs and insecurities. She reassures them they don't need to believe that they will find the love of their lives. She believes it and will deliver them the best match. It's a shopping list of priorities she works with, from a specific height to identical political affiliation. For men, a receding hairline and shorter height takes them off much of the market. “Six inches can double a man’s value,” someone remarks. Meanwhile, slender twenty somethings comprise the most desirable women. On top of this, there are all sorts of racist inclinations. Registered in pointed montages, one of the women emphasizes “whites only”, before helpfully adding she is open to all ethnicities if that’s limited. Everyone, across genders, has their hands dirty. Consumerist thinking has clenched its jaws so deep into the collective psyche, there’s no escape. Singledom is dreaded, viewed culturally as a marker of someone falling through the cracks. At some point in the film, a character asserts nobody is ugly, they just aren’t rich enough. Romance and capital are increasingly entwined just like they were in Jane Austen’s times. Lucy attacks her job—fixing dates, sealing compatibility, ensuring follow-ups right till they materialize in weddings—like it’s math. Even as initially she seems ever-present for her clients’ grievances and doubts, Lucy gradually reveals herself as unbendingly transactional. She’s terrific at her job, having set up nine marriages. But she masks her own yearnings by avowing herself as a voluntary celibate.
At its heart, Materialists digs into the messy equation love and money share in today's world. When do the two become inextricable? What's the difference economic access makes to a relationship? Beyond make and break, how is the act of loving and togetherness filtered through scraping together a bare livelihood? When there are no money worries, how fundamentally does a couple’s argument change? Song stares into cracks in relationships, spelling out degrees to which money meddles. Lucy had broken up with John (Chris Evans) years ago because he was broke. She stumbles into him, a struggling theatre actor, at the same wedding dinner where she meets the cash-strapped Harry (Pedro Pascal). John is still poor, living with roommates and making ends meet by being a waiter.
Lucy has no qualms stating she'll only date someone "mind-numbingly, achingly, absurdly rich". Harry ticks all the boxes. He's tall, charismatic, armed with seemingly endless money. He's what the matchmaking market would call a unicorn—an impossible fantasy. She tells him almost complainingly that "perfect", exceptional men like him are why the market has built all sorts of peculiar specifications. Pascal—irresistible as ever—makes Harry an elusive dream match, who can help Lucy make a killing if she recruited him. Instead, she’s so won over by his invitations to fancy meals, persuading her that she’s valuable, that she moves in with him. She’s also quick to correct him about the difference between dating and love. The former is a lot of trial and error, a “risk” that demands bravery. Love, on the other hand, is the easiest thing.
Early into Materialists, Song finds a crisp, fluid energy. Moments of intimate conversation and confrontation radiate probing intensity. When two Song characters open up to each other, the outer world entirely recedes. With a pained realization, there's no accentuated music, only quiet resignation or another stab at reasoning. The best thing about the film, however, is Song’s zippy, casually revealing dialogue-writing. Particularly, Johnson and Pascal’s early trysts are enthralling to watch and smoothly delivered, as the film glides with its themes.
Materialists eventually assumes darker shades. The glassily confident Lucy grows doubts about her job. Things she felt rock-certain about come undone. Held up by a lambent Johnson, Materialists also scrutinizes Lucy’s low self-worth vis-à-vis her economic class. She’s hard on herself, convinced she doesn’t deserve better. As Song achieved with Past Lives, Materialists glimmers with sobering empathy for all in the central trio. Johnson, Pascal and Evans bare their souls while retaining their character’s deepest integrity. Johnson beguiles, precisely oscillating between a dispassionate attitude that could be mistaken for coldness and need for connection. She’s guarded while just letting in pockets of chance. Song’s male characters, as ever, are beautifully realized, vulnerable and transparent about change. Pascal is wrenching in a later scene when his character confesses fearing being incapable of love. This is a film with almost distractingly shiny, prettified surfaces. But it’s just a smokescreen for ambiguities Song weaves beneath luxe designs. Despite its ample skepticism, Materialists reserves faith in love’s pull that can rebuild, maneuver itself around commerce, not the other way around. There's room left for magic of pure feeling that escapes the math.
