Materialists – Film Review

Director Celine Song
Writer Celine Song
Stars – Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal

In 2023, Celine Song’s Past Lives portrayed a story of first love, which began in Korea and had a second chance many years later in New York. It engaged at many levels and rightly received public and professional acclaim. In Materialists, she again writes and directs, but she is looking at the boy-meets-girl story from a very different perspective.

In the past, Celine Song worked as a matchmaker for six months. She uses that experience to create Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a savvy, good-looking, early-thirties matchmaker who lives in the hectic commercial bubble that is Manhattan. She is good at her job. Indeed, she can count nine couples who eventually married as a result of her professional skills. However, her own love life is a little more complex. She is torn between the age-old problem, put at its simplest, of marrying for love or for money. New York is a great location in which to pose the question.

Lucy is successful but single, and at a glamorous wedding, she encounters the groom’s brother Harry (Pedro Pascal), who comes from a very successful New York financial background and owns a spacious, carefully calibrated apartment in Tribeca. She has a romantic past in the shape of John (Chris Evans), a struggling theatre actor. He earns money in the catering industry in one form or another. He shares a cramped apartment with an inconsiderate flatmate whose behaviour infuriates him. The New York lives of Harry and John are poles apart. Lucy is enchanted by Harry, but by chance she encounters John once more, and her dilemma is laid bare.

The storyline is as old as the hills, but Song in the contrasts that New York so easily provides gives it a contemporary credence. In addition, Song gives us more than a glimpse of what some of her clients are seeking in their ideal partner. Here is fertile ground to introduce a varied range of characters whose obsessive requirements and bizarre redlines make for a piquant salad of comedy. Johnson’s Lucy is unashamedly fond of the things money can buy, like many people, but she is an outsider in the cool, opulent glamour of Harry’s apartment. Johnson captures the inner conflict within Lucy, which is underlined when John re-emerges. Evans is superb as the committed, no longer young actor, as he wears his earnestness for Lucy so palpably. Lucy, Harry and John make a fine eternal love triangle.

The visuals throughout are beautifully calibrated, with costume designer Katina Danabassis producing spot-on outfits for the professionally successful Lucy. The cinematography of Shabier Kirchner gives you the public buzz that is Manhattan, but in the apartments of Harry and John, you glimpse what cannot be seen from the sidewalk.. It is all very stylish.

Celine Song has created three characters who are entirely credible and, for the most part, likeable. Their interaction creates a good dynamic.  The film lasts just under two hours, and for the vast majority, it engages. However, as the storyline begins to gel, it is less compelling. Celine Song deservedly had success with Past Lives. Materialists is a good second movie, but somehow does not quite capture the magic that permeates Past Lives.