In Materialists, director Celine Song dissects the modern dating world, where love seems negotiable. Dakota Johnson plays a successful matchmaker who loses control when her own love life derails. Reviewers see sharp observations but sometimes miss depth.
“American-Korean director Celine Song, who made a dream debut two years ago with the love film Past Lives, shines her light on the modern, rather twisted dating culture in Materialists, where a relationship or marriage is considered a business deal. Only when a man or woman meets specific requirements are they willing to make an appointment.”
“Nice idea to examine the romcom stuff itself in a romcom. With Celine Song, dialogues are like miniatures. It’s as if conversations in the film are cut out of time, as if the ambient sound disappears and there is only the conversation between two people. Lead actress Dakota Johnson, who was fed acting with a silver spoon as the daughter of Melanie Griffith and granddaughter of Hitchcock actress Tippi Hedren, is great as matchmaker Lucy. She conducts soft, realistic conversations like you hear them in the café around the corner.”
“For Lucy – played coolly and calculatingly by Johnson – something is indeed wrong: her heart. She is successful in business, but completely stuck in private. She believes in love, but only as a well-thought-out deal. That contradiction explodes at a wedding when she comes into contact with two men: Harry (Pedro Pascal), a smooth private investor in a penthouse, and John (Chris Evans), her ex from her chaotic twenties – still broke, but with a golden heart.”
“Both men want her, Lucy chooses money without much ado. In a forced flashback, she breaks up with John because they were always broke – a scene that should capture years of frustration in one go. Her uncomfortable relationship with money – how she longs for it, hates it and admires it – is one of the strongest and most original themes in the film.”
Materialists is a remarkable film. Especially in the first part, it sometimes seems as if we are watching a Katja Schuurman-like romantic comedy, but through a slightly more artistic filter. Because yes, of course Lucy still has a soft spot for her ex, but what should she do when she meets the wealthy charmer Harry (Pedro Pascal)? Is he her ‘unicorn’ (someone who scores perfectly in all areas) after all?”
“And yet Materialists turns out differently, especially when the idea of Lucy’s makeability ideal of love is turned upside down, causing her to doubt everything herself. Real chemistry may not be captured in makeability: you feel it automatically when you love someone, and matchmakers and dating apps can rarely provide that feeling, no matter how much Lucy convinces herself.”
“Song based her script again on her own experience: she worked briefly as a matchmaker when she was still a struggling theater maker. Unfortunately, this time it did not lead to deeply felt main characters. The figures in Materialists feel more like an amalgam of striking, sad or funny anecdotes than as real people. The deep, sincere empathy of Past Lives is missing and the humor and observations are often not sharp enough to compensate for this lack. The plot also flounders in the second part.”
“A formidable debut can also lead to a paralyzing writer’s block. Then it is probably smarter to, as Song is doing now, experiment a bit. She seems to be looking for ways to talk about contemporary love in an entertaining way without being dismissed as frivolous. That is an interesting ambition: hopefully ‘experiment’ Materialist will lead to a great third film.”