Materialists
I had some trepidation walking into writer/director Celine Song's Materialists. On one hand, Song provided my favorite film of 2023. On the other hand, the set up of a beautiful matchmaker, starring my least-favorite mainstream actress, who just can't seem to find her own Mr. Right, sounded like the kind of bargain-basement romcom that would normally make me want to run quickly in the opposite direction. Thankfully, that's not what Materialists turns out to be. However, what we do get is only somewhat more successful.
We're introduced to star matchmaker Lucy (Dakota Johnson) attending the marriage of the ninth couple she's brought together. At the reception, the single working girl with no plans for couplehood gets the double-barreled surprise in meeting the man who "checks all her boxes" in the rich Harry (Pedro Pascal) and runs into her ex, the struggling actor John (Chris Evans), who wasn't good enough for her the first time around.
Despite the setup, Materialists isn't really a love triangle. Instead, it's really a look at both the art (or con) of matchmaking and about Lucy finding the guy who is everything she thought she ever wanted only to question why she isn't fulfilled. At the same time, Lucy's professional life takes a hit when the longtime client (Zoë Winters) she hasn't been able to match gets raped on her latest date. Spiraling, she questions her relationship with Harry while leaning emotionally on John.
Far more traditional, and far less emotionally impactful, than Past Lives, Materialists struggles for several reasons including Johnson's Lucy who breaks down marriage and partnership to mathematical certainties, weighing financial success far more than love (although she certainly falls for Harry's apartment). In Harry, it's easy to argue that Lucy has found her true soulmate in a good match despite the lack of heat and chemistry. However, this is a Hollywood story and there's never a doubt as to where Lucy will end up (even as the movie reminds us why that match will likely fail).
I've never big the biggest fan of Johnson. She's certainly better here than in Madame Web, and her reaction to Harry's apartment is one of the few genuine chuckles the film earns, but Lucy's detachment merged with Johnson's inability to emote on-screen is problematic even in the film's better scenes. There's a scene where we learn that Lucy is a failed actress who, in her own words, didn't know where to stand or how to talk. It's eerie how honest those words feel coming from Johnson's mouth on-screen.
Materialists isn't the complete clusterfuck I was half-expecting, even if Johnson's lack of chemistry with both co-stars in a film where nearly everyone feels miscast leads to mixed results. Song has some interesting ideas about matchmaking (the montages of expectations of her privileged and oblivious clients certainly hit home) but some staid ideas about love leading ultimately to some interesting scenes but not a great story.
Forced to color inside the lines a bit more for the mainstream follow-up will big name stars (reminding me a bit of Kevin Smith's Jersey Girl), and struggling with some questionable casting choices amongst some opulent scenery (reminding me of The Bonfire of the Vanities), the film is a bit of a mess. While I understand events of the film push Lucy in the genre-expected direction, I don't for a second believe the character we meet at the beginning of the film (one obsessed with material wealth above all else) makes these choices. We can hope Lucy has grown by the end of the film, and that her newfound happiness will last, but I don't know that we see real evidence of that by the end of the film.
Watch the trailer- Title: Materialists
- IMDb: link
