They’re selling Materialists as some plush New York dating comedy for the crowd that would have followed Sex and the City back in its day (as opposed to its current sequel). I’m here to tell you that it’s not that. No, underneath this movie’s posh interiors and Hollywood star power is a story that’s hard-headed to the point of cynicism about love and marriage. So this isn’t the movie that’s being sold to you. It’s something better, and one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.
Dakota Johnson portrays Lucy Mason, a professional matchmaker at an agency that promises lifelong companionship to wealthy Manhattanites. Seasoned veteran that she is, Lucy does not flinch when one of her clients (Louisa Jacobson) comes to her just before her wedding and admits that she’s only going through with it to embarrass her older sister: “My husband is richer, taller, and better-looking than her husband. It means I’ve won.”
At the reception of that wedding, Lucy finds a “unicorn” in Harry (Pedro Pascal), a private equity manager who’s single despite owning a fortune, not raising any red flags, and looking like Pedro Pascal. She resolves to keep this man for herself, but she also reunites at the same wedding reception with John (Chris Evans), her ex-boyfriend who’s working as a waiter for the caterer.
As a man who’s generously 5’7”, I have to say that the heightism on display here is off the charts. All the women among Lucy’s clients declare they won’t date any men shorter than 5’11”, and well might Lucy look down on those women (sorry) if she hadn’t become one of them herself. When John tells her that one of his friends is marrying an OnlyFans model, she says, “He’s a 5’7” depressed novelist who’s never been published. That’s as good as he’s going to get.” (And thus she insults sex workers and struggling writers as well as short men.) A lesser, more conventional version of this film would have her ex be some vertically challenged male like Jack Black or Peter Dinklage.
Instead, we have Evans, and instead of the serene confidence he projected as Captain America, he replaces it with a sweaty desperation borne of John’s awareness that Lucy would reject him on a professional basis because he’s a broke theater actor who still lives with roommates in his late 30s. He’s matched by Pascal, who for once gets to be just charming and funny as a rich man who has hit middle age without finding love and is afraid it will never come. As terrible as Johnson was in the justly maligned Madame Web, she’s brilliant here as someone who suspects that she’s good at her job because she’s a terrible person who likes spending her time in fancy restaurants with rich people even though she herself isn’t rich — her $80,000 annual salary won’t go far in Manhattan.
Most people seemed to like writer-director Celine Song’s 2023 debut film Past Lives better than I did, but I still spotted a filmmaker of talent in that movie. Here she’s delivered some of the best writing I’ve ever heard on this job, and I compile an annual list of the year’s best movie dialogue. She can write a funny joke: “I’m not sure New York has many conservative Republican cat-hating lesbians who want to date a closeted 49-year-old Black mother of three,” a fraying Lucy tells one client. “Would you be willing to consider someone from Long Island or New Jersey?” Lucy’s initial exchange with Harry (where the older man tells her she’s undervaluing herself) is worthy of my year-end list, among more than a few others here.
In addition to that, Song’s willing to address subjects that most romantic comedies stay away from. She makes this story as painfully money-conscious as any Jane Austen novel. Not for nothing is this movie called Materialists, and when Lucy first has sex with Harry, she can’t stop staring at the furniture in his $12 million apartment. Lucy does flinch when a client states outright that she will only date white men, but the ethical consequences of her career providing luxury services for the city’s wealthiest come up starkest when one of her matches goes very bad.
A lot of these movies end with the protagonist choosing love over money, but everything here that goes before Lucy’s choice gives it weight and makes it feel like she’s leaping into the unknown after a life spent approaching romance in the most pragmatic way. Too many filmmakers treat romantic films about well-heeled people as fun little throwaways, or “girl shit,” as Lucy puts it. (Recent examples: Anyone But You, Ticket to Paradise, You’re Cordially Invited.) Song’s ability to squeeze great drama out of this setup makes her one of America’s most promising filmmakers right now, and makes this movie a treasure.
Materialists
Starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans. Written and directed by Celine Song. Rated R.
