Materialists | Dir: Celine Song | ★ ★ ★ ★
When it comes to modern romance, what’s more valuable: advantageous compatibility or genuine, messy connection? Celine Song’s Materialists cleverly asks this question, exploring the complexities of love, wealth, and the often-transactional nature of dating today.
Known for her emotionally evocative debut film Past Lives, Song takes a sharper, more satirical turn in Materialists, inspired by her own experiences as a professional matchmaker in New York. The outcome is a film that’s both witty and tender, deeply relatable yet painfully realistic.
The film centres around Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a successful matchmaker who has built her career by reducing romance to calculated tick-boxes. Lucy’s orderly world is thrown into chaos when she finds herself torn between John (Chris Evans), her charming yet perpetually struggling actor ex-boyfriend, and Harry (Pedro Pascal), the wealthy “unicorn” bachelor promising security and luxury.
On paper, Harry appears to be the ideal match, but Lucy’s undeniable chemistry with John underscores a fundamental truth: love rarely follows logic.
While modern dating often feels transactional, Materialists pushes back on this idea that love – the kind that lasts – can be optimised or neatly arranged. The film explores how even in a world obsessed with compatibility, something unruly and deeply human still insists on being felt. As Lucy says in the film, “Marriage is a business deal, but love must be on the table.”
Despite being marketed as a romcom, Materialists leans more heavily on the romance, with the occasional comedic relief largely drawn from Lucy’s eccentric and demanding clientele. The film’s ending might seem a little predictable, but Song ensures it feels well-earned and emotionally satisfying rather than cliched or formulaic. The outcome is a smart, relatable, and thoroughly enjoyable film, backed by exceptional cinematography that gives otherwise uneventful scenes a dreamy quality, and a soundtrack that enhances every emotional nuance.
In the end, Materialists succeeds not only because of its charming leads and sharp humour but also by reminding us that the uncertain and sometimes messy aspects of love – the things that can’t be reduced down to check boxes – are precisely what make it so genuinely rewarding.
Alice Macri
Materialists arrives in cinemas today, Thursday 12th June.
