The Materialists, Cynicism, and Earning your Romance
- zandaleeindigo
- Jun 18
- 10 min read
Let me start by saying: many of you are being very, very, Very strange toward Celine Song in a way I do not appreciate. While I have questions and qualms with the film, I'm also mature enough to recognize that not every film a director I like puts out is going to be the Best Thing I've Ever Seen. Beau is Afraid (2023) left me unsatisfied, I still don't love Barbie (2023), and Babylon (2022) makes me a little mad when I think about it. None of that necessitates the way people are speaking about Celine for a movie that is--for all intents and purposes--Fine.
That being said. I did not like this movie. To be Fair and Balanced, I knew going into it it probably wouldn't be my favorite film this year. Christopher Evans is my enemy (I got many lashings on TikTok for voicing my truth) and Dakota Johnson doesn't have the best track record when it comes to being captivating to watch on screen. It was shocking just how grating it was to watch the performances in this at times. Johnson plays Lucy, a no nonsense, New York matchmaker--a profession I find intriguing--that Johnson's performance makes as exhilarating as watching paint dry. Her two love interests, the suave, wealthy brother of one of her successful matches Harry, played by Pedro Pascal, and her surly, struggling actor ex boyfriend John, played by Chris Evans are not exempt from sucking the soul of this film either.
I found myself scratching my head at times, wondering how we got here. While Johnson is often criticized for her sleepy performances, I've seen her be Good in things. Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022) might be some of her best work. How to Be Single (2016) was an enjoyable watch. Her work in Suspiria (2018) and Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) was fine, if a little lackluster. Chris Evans is someone I will never understand, but I'm mature enough to acknowledge he came out looking the best of the leads. But I also believe the reason I wasn't super bothered by his performance is because the film is engineered to make you like him--something I will touch on later. Pedro Pascal is by far my favorite actor of the three, and I actually think he's working the hardest to keep the film afloat but with wooden scene partners and the strange tone the film takes on...even he falls short (no pun intended).
Coming off the high of Past Lives (2023) and Challengers (2024), two stellar films that weren't both written by Song herself but are connected due to them being (at the very least loosely) based on her marriage with Justin Kuritzkes, The Materialists continues to confound me. Past Lives was such a beautifully heartbreaking examination of unrequited love that was filled to the brim with charged glances and yearning, Challengers on the other hand an exciting battle of wits and egos punctuated by the passions running high. The Materialists however, is a romance film devoid of romance. No chemistry between the leads, no whimsy, no spark. Part of me wondered how it was possible to go from creating one of the most devastatingly romantic movies I've seen to creating something so wooden and cold. But part of me wondered if maybe... that was the point?
I walked into my 9:55pm showing with the innate knowledge that a piece would be written about this movie, I just wasn't sure what shape it would take. From the premise and pieces of the trailer I'd seen, coupled with my expeirence watching the two other films that are effectively in this "cannon," I knew I would leave the theater... affected. I'd heard rumblings about how "talky" the movie was (something that, as a lover of plays, only sells me on something more) and about how the cynicism of the film bogs it down at times. While I had my reservations about the cast, this was what pushed me to see it as soon as I did.
I am a self described hopeless romantic. Twenty-four, chronically single, and a little bit obsessed with the idea of love. I've been making my way through the pantheon of romcoms, almost exclusively watching reality tv revolving around dating (my lengthy Love is Blind post is one of my favorites I've ever written--and a Love Island post is coming soon...), and even find myself strangely fascinated with all aspects of the online Dating Sphere. Incels, femininity coaches, dating coaches, matchmakers. I've explored all angles of the politics of dating out of sheer curiosity and find certain conversations others can't stomach incredibly interesting, even if I don't agree with them. So, I will be honest and say I did really enjoy some aspects of the script, I just think the execution was too muddled to land the plane.
The film introduces us to Lucy as this contradiction of a woman. She's someone who is a bit of a workaholic, always recruiting and working to get her clients matches. She's warm enough to get her clients to trust and confide in her, but cold and aloof toward her own suitors as a means of protection. She's studied the complexities of dating and boiled it down to a science, constantly doing "math" in her head to calculate compatibility but deep down believes in the existence of real love and knows it can't be quantified, it just happens and when it does it's easy. She's someone who is insecure. Throughout her time getting to know Harry she constantly reminds him that "according to the math" he is out of her league, and asks him why he chooses to give her the time of day. John on the other hand is "mathematically" below her, and that is why she refuses to be with him--because she knows it won't work.
The biggest issue with this movie is that I'm not sure what it wants us, as an audience, to leave believing about love. I kept wondering if this is supposed to be a vapid, cynical, analytical look at modern dating and how sterlie it has become or if it's supposed to be a romantic comedy about a guarded woman breaking free of societal pressures and learning to be vulnerable. Is it meant to be a satire and illustrate how current ideas of love are unreasonable and shallow? Or perhaps a commentary about how we've managed to commodify dating to a point where everyone has been reduced to the list of facts Johnson rattles off in every scene? And if that's the case, what are we as an audience meant to feel about it all?
The lack of specificity in the message muddles the emotional thread we're meant to follow, but I would argue on top of that the film being horrendously miscast and oddly directed only exacerbate how bland it feels. The first three quarters of the movie are conversation heavy, serious talks about navigating relationships and choosing who you want to be with. The final fourth of the film however, devolves into a full blown romcom and we as an audience are suddenly thrown into a completely different film. It almost feels like we're gaslit into believing in a serious love story, and by the end of the movie Lucy and John have rekindled their relationship, he's decided to put in more effort and she's decided money isn't everything. They kiss and have their happily ever after, but the problem is none of it is earned.
One of my favorite creators, Nia Ola, did a quick review of the film that hits a lot of the issues I had with those early conversations about dating and why Lucy choosing John is a lame ending--I will link it here. But I want to talk about this last quarter as a self appointed romantic comedy connoisseur. It's pretty clearly televised to the audience that Lucy is going to pick John early on, but most of that is told to us and never shown. After bumping into each other at a client's wedding, Lucy and John catch up over a cigaratte. John offers to drive her home and in the car they reminisce about why they didn't work out the first time. We flashback to a scene of the two of them in the same car arguing on their anniversary. John is cheap and poor and doesn't want to pay New York prices for parking, and Lucy is someone that wants to be wined and dined on her anniversary. As they argue, shouting in the middle of the street she says something to the effect of "I can't be with you, not because we aren't in love but because you're broke!"
This is the only flashback we get of the two of them before the start of the film and it does a horrible job setting the audience up for a powerful love that entices her now that she's self-sufficient. Not to say that a relationship can't be established in its totality through an argument scene, but we don't see them happily in love ever before things go to shit. Not only that but the fight is at the tail end of their relationship and I don't feel them fighting like they love each other. I have no idea what draws Lucy back to John other than that she keeps telling him she's being drawn to him. I don't understand what she loves about him other than the script explaining it in these long diatribes about how if he wasn't broke they could be something special.
Every glance in Past Lives held a significant weight. Every touch, every sigh, told us so much about the inner monologue of every character on screen. We could feel the electricity between Nora and Hae Sung on their Skype calls, and once they met in person after all those years we got to watch them fall back into familiar rhythms--sharing shy smiles and knowing looks. Challengers was full of arguments and intense conversations that were all coated in the underlying passion between the characters, drive for playing tennis, love for one another, lust. The film was electrifying. This was missing that special something.
The film is shot impeccably, the cast all conventionally attractive, the costumes are sleek and expensive looking, the script rife with dialogue that is easily screencapped and clipped for Tumblr and Pinterest mood boards, but it lacks any real depth or emotional weight. And again, if it was trying to emulate the shallowness found throughout modern dating and make some sort of poignant commentary about it; this works well. But I know that's not the end goal. The film was full of sequences meant to be comedic, had an emotional arc we were meant to root for our main character on, and ended with two romantic confessions. Just like the nepo baby at the helm, it just didn't earn where it ended up.
I think what's the most disappointing about this movie is that it, for lack of a better term, checked a lot of my boxes. I see myself in Lucy--or well, in what she was supposed to be. I am bitchy and judgemental and cold. I study love in my spare time, I have a hard time grasping the idea of someone being interested in me, I feel unlovable a lot. I should've felt connected to Lucy, identified with her struggle the way I did with Nora and Tashi. The issue was, none of these things were shown to us through her interactions with people or the way she moved through the world. Instead these traits were monologued to us, in stilted dialogue. It was meant to be shocking to Harry that Lucy was the kind of girl to argue with her boyfriend in the middle of traffic, a piece of her revealed that cracks her seemingly perfect exterior (like him and his scars), but that moment doesn't work because Lucy isn't the type of person to do that. She's not passionate, coy, cold, or firey. She's boring. Her character's flatness is only amplified by the comedic matchmaking sequences sprinkled throughout. The character actors easily outshine her (I haven't even touched on Zoe Winters supporting performance! So good!), but all of the snarky, judgmental moments that culminate in the last quarter of the movie don't land because Lucy has no spark.
In her Tiktok review of the film, Nia asserts that the best movie to examine matchmaking and dating in a heartfelt, genuine, interesting way was Hitch (2005). I was also reminded of the golden era of early 2000s romantic comedies while wrapping my head around the themes present throughout this film. My unabashed love for the movie is either sure to win some of you over or blow any and all credibility I have, but the emotional core missing from this movie is present and perfect in He's Just Not That Into You (2009). Both films examine the modern dating scene (of their respective times) and interrogate a lot of prescribed gender roles and preconceived notions of love a lot of us have complicated feelings about. Broadly speaking they are films in conversation with one another, but the Justin Long/Ginnifer Goodwin of it all makes He's Just Not That Into You superior. Sure Justin essentially plays our Lucy character, and he's not a matchmaker just a playboy who's a bit of a dick--but the erosion of the tough exterior he wears, the slow fall into (or in Lucy's case back into) love, even the third act confrontation is so much more effective because the film does such a good job laying the foundation.
My major qualms about the film really boil down to the problem I have with most modern romance movies, they lack the whimsy and passion needed to make them compelling. That special sauce in 90s and early 2000s romcoms is the same thing that has people on Twitter writing think pieces berating characters like Carrie Bradshaw--romance used to be earnest. It was uncomfortable and wild and cringey and exciting. The films of yore gave us so much more than pretty people kissing on screen. I'm reminded of my favorite piece I reference all the time: everyone is beautiful and no one is horny. Everyone is self conscious and afraid of getting hurt or looking ridiculous when the most gripping love stories are full of that stuff. I only write this because of how disappointing the film was for me, but not because I have no hopes for Song's future works. Past Lives made me so hopeful, that we could get back to romance with teeth--with need and hunger and yearning. Films that successfully tell stories about love transcending the material.
Thank you for reading! If you would like to check out my other writing feel free to go over to my Substack linked below :)
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