Girl is a matchmaker who thinks she knows everything about love and dating. Girl is swept off her feet by rich, handsome boy at a wedding. Uh oh, she bumps into her ex at the same wedding, who still cares about her deeply. Who will be the one to win her heart? So goes the premise of Materialists, as served up by the marketing team to a cinemagoing audience starved of romantic comedies, a genre that has found itself exiled on Netflix in recent times. It’s easy to see how the film could be mistaken for a drama-filled rom-com, but, crucially, it’s something quite different.
First of all, it’s missing the comedy, but not because of wayward jokes. Though moments of light humour do creep in, it simply isn’t trying to be funny. A romantic drama, then? Perhaps, but with the emphasis on ‘romantic’. Far from being a romp, this is the second feature from writer-director Celine Song, who follows up her impressive debut Past Lives, a beautifully poetic film that explores how love can be redirected by fate, circumstance and the choices we make, while also centring on a love triangle of sorts. What made Past Lives such a singular experience for me was the way it quietly works away at you, building to an unexpected crescendo of overwhelming emotion. The film never jumps out at the audience; instead, it washes over you. On the surface, Materialists looks like it will be jumpy, but it too is washy.
The film also has plenty to say, and it’s clear its aims are grander than we may be led to believe, right from the opening scene, which shows the start of a romance between a prehistoric man and woman. It’s a disorienting prologue for a film about modern relationships set in New York City, and immediately has you scrambling to work out why Song, evidently a careful and elaborate filmmaker, has chosen to start here. As we flash forward to the present day, the contrast between the extravagance of New York’s high-end dating scene and the simplicity of prehistoric love is stark. We meet Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a professional matchmaker, as she is barraged with impossibly high standards from clients who seem to believe she can magically summon the ideal specimen for a partner.
Well, Lucy may secretly be a sorceress because she is very good at what she does. At the 9th wedding she has set up, she catches the eye of Harry (Pedro Pascal), an uber-wealthy gentleman who has everything but a wife. Driven by her head over her heart, she initially remains cold to his advances — emitting an air of indifference that Dakota Johnson can pull off all too well — citing the unsuitability of their match. Unable to disentangle her romantic and professional selves, the matchmaker in her insists that “the math doesn’t add up,” doing for dating what Brad “Moneyball” Pitt did for baseball. She’s the one to observe that Harry has it all and can do much better than her. He’s a “unicorn” whose mere existence sets the inflated standards for those hopeful loveseekers Lucy pairs up on a daily basis.
It’s not long before flaws begin to appear in her mindset that sees love as a system that can be gamed as long as enough boxes are ticked. “I am not merchandise, I’m a person,” a client laments as she scolds Lucy after a date goes seriously wrong — a subplot that may be a radical tonal detour from the warmth of the romance but does prompt Lucy’s self-realisation and also hammer home the point that you can know every attribute of a person and still not anticipate what they are really like.
Meanwhile, she is pursued by John (Chris Evans), her struggling actor and part-time cater-waiter ex-boyfriend, whose cramped apartment, shared with nightmarish roommates, couldn’t be further from Harry’s $12 million penthouse. After they reconnect at the aforementioned wedding, John catches a glance of Lucy dancing with Harry, a moment sure to be the spark for a dramatic love triangle, a conflict driven by jealousy. The film, however, sets up tropes like these before promptly veering away from them. Thus, the relationship drama never arrives. What’s left in its place, though, certainly isn’t hollow. Under the surface, there’s a beating heart. And plenty of yearning.
The film’s key strength lies in the elegance of Celine Song’s writing. She understands the potential power of a conversation and how it can alter a relationship, citing Phantom Thread as a key influence. Her conversations are impactful without venturing into melodrama, remaining subdued. These scenes tend to build towards a single observation that initially seems simple but becomes more profound as you reflect on it. As one character comments on the difficulty of love, another replies that it’s easy because “it just walks into our lives sometimes.”
In both her films, Song has tackled a grand, overarching idea. Past Lives revolves around a very specific concept, a single word in Korean: inyeon. It’s a far-reaching, consequential idea that gives the film life and, in the context of the story, only becomes more powerful, serving as an emotionally and intellectually satisfying takeaway. With Materialists, Song focuses on love, a far more general idea, and tasks herself with the arguably greater challenge of forging new territory in an area that gets explored over and over again. Despite a series of valuable musings along the way, the final verdict, while endearing, doesn’t feel groundbreaking — although this is a tall order — and leaves a frustratingly light impression.
Materialists can win you over, if you’ll let it, leaving any rom-com hopes at the door. Song’s earnestness and resolve shine through her filmmaking as she calls for love to rise above the shallowness of modern dating culture. For a film about choosing between your head and your heart, it admirably breaks its own rules, possessing both.
CineLiterate 