‘Materialists’ suffers from misguided and disguised vanity

Celine Song takes a major stumble in her sophomore effort, the surface-level and cloying Materialists.

There’s realism, and then there’s cold, calculated detachment. It’s the latter of which the misguided and tonally vapid Materialists falls into, a film that, rather than reigniting a flame, suggests that love would be better staying dead. A film with a steady, artful gaze that understands the aesthetic pleasure of well-fitted fashion on well-constructed physiques, whose eye lingers on the materialistic additions to our everyday life – steel cigarette cases and silk sheets, florals and fastidiously arranged brunches:  casual decadence. The film is visually appealing, just as caught up in the blatant, consumeristic desire as our protagonist argues she is. If only there were any substance beneath the mood board.

Dakota Johnson stars as Lucy, a successful matchmaker in New York City who sees the dating game as just that – a game. She’s celebrating her ninth married couple even while she struggles to match one of her longest clients, Sophie (Zoë Winters). Dating is an insufferable bout of numbers and losses, so the film would suggest, as she tries to pair up singles throughout the city while meeting their exacting demands. Her world turns on its axis when, at the wedding of one of her clients, she meets the handsome and wealthy bachelor, Harry (Pedro Pascal), on the same night she runs into her ex, John (Chris Evans).

As she begins to date Harry while John reenters her life, Lucy must apply and then let go of the same rules she’s used as a matchmaker. Money rules all, and every person has a value tallied to them. But sometimes, love simply is something she must learn to grapple with as the film forces her to realize that no matter the numbers, sometimes things aren’t going to turn out as planned.

Materialists lack a necessary heart.

Celine Song, who so stunned in her visually stunning portrait of human desires, missed opportunities, and adult love stories in Oscar-nominated Past Lives, gave herself a relatively high bar to clear in her follow-up. While Past Lives held its characters at a distance but still managed to imbue them with tangible warmth, Materialists has, with surgical precision, separated the heart from the body. Cynical and repellent, the film doesn’t so much explore the human condition as it does exhume a body. Which is, in part, the point – Lucy does compare herself to a mortician at one point. However, even if the character tries to play love as a mathematical game of numbers, of the bits and pieces that make up the total of ourselves, the film clearly wants to be more than that. The failure to achieve it is its greatest misdoing.

The film’s overall tone takes a critical pivot midway through and never recovers. The severity of the issue that befalls one of its characters – a very real danger in the world of dating – sucks any air left out of the film. And not because it dominates the story, but because it only works as a means to move Lucy’s story forward. It’s understandable why Song wanted this element as she seeks to deconstruct the rom-com and the glitz that accompanies them. However, by trying to re-route our understanding of the genre, she strips her film of the very charm and relatability that come with the very best of them. Despite its best efforts, it presents an inauthentic portrayal of romance. It wants to be real, but not a single character – barring Winters’ Sophie – reads as human.

There is truth to the argument of the film about how money warps us and turns love into a means by which we barb and argue. Financial strain is a very tangible and relatable relationship strain. However, it would improve with actors who can believably portray the downtrodden and a script that fully grasps the gravity of living paycheck to paycheck. I’m a freelance writer and work in a restaurant. I have always, and likely will always be, someone on the cusp, if not the clutches of week-to-week livelihood. It’s a space I understand well. Materialists masquerades as a film understanding that toxicity and financial insecurity. But the mask is flimsy.

A beautiful portrait of love without the actual romance.

Materialists also spends far too much time on the money of it all. It consumes us but but not to the point where every single goddamn conversation is overwhelmed by the topic.

While the actors are perfectly fine, neither pairing shares much by way of onscreen chemistry. The script lets Pascal down in particular as he tries to work on his suave, public persona. But the result is a somewhat drab performance, lukewarm and undercooked. Johnson works well with the material, though it’s Evans who works best, in large part due to the script letting John be the most human character, tethered to the ground.

Where Materialists excels is in the craftmanship. Like Past Lives, the cinematography by Shabier Kirchner works beautifully with Song’s direction. The editing playfully ramps up the tension, as we’re often the first to notice key players in the background before the other characters do. The moments where the outside world drops away and Lucy dances with Harry or John, and the score from composer Daniel Pemberton sweeps us away, we’re momentarily transplanted into a love story – a rough around the edges one, but still. These are the scenes that best highlight Song’s innate skill and profound ability to transport us. But while Past Lives made us feel like we were entrenched in the interiority of these characters’ lives and their raw vulnerabilities, Materialists is too analytical, leading with its brain rather than its heart.

The bottom line.

Celine Song has a clear reverence for romance. But none of that affection is evident in the script for Materialists. A hollow outline of what an interesting deconstruction can be, it fails to spark any sense of desire or joy. The numbers game consumes the film to the point of being little more than a report on what love is and can be. It’s cinematic in its aesthetics, but lacks the soul to back it up. Movies are meant to make us feel. Yet Materialists is too consumed with defining love and modern dating and fails to remember that crucial element. The result is a pretty picture with nothing to say.

Materialists is out now in theaters. Watch the trailer here. 

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Images courtesy of A24.