Materialists: Past Lives Director Delivers Sparkle in a Star-Studded Rom-Com
By Karen Gordon
Rating: A-
New York-based Canadian writer-director Celine Song follows up Past Lives, her near-perfect and Oscar-nominated 2023 directorial debut, with Materialists, a movie that mines the same territory: romantic relationships and the way we think about love.
After the spare and almost meditative tone of Past Lives comes this snappy rom-com with serious star power that unapologetically follows the conventions of the genre, which means we can guess where it’s likely going to take us. But that’s no biggie.
We know what we’re in for when we go to see a rom-com. We watch to see how things that can go so wrong end up going towards love.
The irony is that the rom-com formula subverts the ideas it poses —and perhaps the ideas we have — about love before bringing it back all together again. In rom-coms, it's never about the lead character settling or picking someone and hoping for the best.
It’s that true love is possible. Aspirational? Doesn't matter. We're at the movies. And when it works, as it does in Materialists, the rom-com is deeply satisfying.
Song, who started her career as a playwright, wants to entertain us, but isn’t interested in the easiest answers. Materialists, as you might have gleaned from the title, deconstructs attitudes to dating to how wonder about whether what we look for when we’re thinking about a mate, is more about transaction, than something truly romantic or loving.
To underline that, Song has set the movie in the world of professional matchmaking.
Dakota Johnson stars as Lucy, a beautiful, sharp-minded businesswoman working for a high-end matchmaking company in Manhattan. And although she’s the bridge to making love matches for others, she’s single.
Lucy is an interesting character. She’s looks like the ultimate catch. She sizes up clients in minutes and sells them on the idea that their perfect match is out there, and she can help them find that. She's pushing a romantic notion yet she’s not romantic about it all.
Her well-heeled clients come with a checklist of hard-and-fast wants for a partner. Lucy’s been in the game long enough to see that those lists are generally more of a projection of who clients think they are than what might make them happy.
She is also a clear thinker, quick and decisive about her own perceptions and feelings. She wears her assets like a suit of armour, yet there’s a vulnerability to her she uses her verbal skills to defuse.
At a client’s wedding, Lucy meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), a possible match for a woman she’s had trouble partnering. Harry is the brother of the groom. He’s rich, accomplished, confident, and of course handsome. Confident but not obnoxious. And he has class and manners. But Harry sees Lucy as the fulfillment of what he’s looking for.
Complication comes very quickly in the form of John (Chris Evans), a would-be actor waiting tables at the wedding. As Harry is opening a conversation with Lucy, John — Lucy’s ex — swoops in with her preferred drink order. It’s a nice reunion moment that speaks of no lasting bad feelings.
In that moment, with the three of them in proximity, there’s a frightening amount of chemistry!
So, it’s game on, and as the movie unfolds, we get to see the contrast between the two men. John is poor and struggling. Harry is not. They're opposites in the game of life, but no one is a jerk. Lucy's choice doesn't come down to a villain versus a hero. Rather, the situation asks her to measure her own heart, which means to ask herself whether she has resisted and why.
The movie begins as a light comedy before darkening. Lucy is trying to matchmake Sophie (Zoe Winters) who is, in the dating world, considered ‘older’ and who is disappointed in Lucy’s efforts which have so far brought her nothing. And Lucy’s desire to keep her clients leads to the murkier side of dating and matchmaking.
The tone of the film is intelligent and breezy even as it asks some questions of us. The biggest weakness is that there are a few moments in the storyline that feel manufactured.
Sophie’s story, for instance, reflects a reality of the modern dating world. Sophie is a sympathetic character, and yet her story feels forced, too obviously there for the purposes of moving Lucy’s story in a certain direction.
Even still, the cast is so skillful and grounded in their characters that it feels true. Materialists is fun and satisfying and, thanks its wonderful cast, full of tender sweetness.
Rom-coms are about the journey and pleasure of watching love bloom, wither, and bloom again. Life seldom delivers romance in neat packages, so there’s something so joyful and life-affirming about a good romance. As the mystics — and the Beatles — say, “Love is all you need.”
Materialists. Written and directed by Celine Song. Starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. In theatres June 13.