'Materialists' is a shallow, boring mess
Celine Song's rom-com for the dating app era suffers from a confused script.
Note: The following contains spoilers for “Materialists” and mentions of sexual assault.
“Materialists,” Celine Song’s new-ish rom-com for the modern era, boldly asks: What if a movie was both tedious and infuriating?
The film follows Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a steely New York City matchmaker caught in a love triangle between her working-class ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans) and fabulously wealthy new flame Harry (Pedro Pascal). Given the premise, I anticipated that the film would weave in commentary on the pitfalls of dating in 2025 and would mostly serve as a fun night at the movies.
So imagine my dismay when “Materialists” turned out to be a joyless slog that was somehow both underwritten and overwritten.
Most of the film’s issues can be sourced back to its script, which has the characters bluntly list their backstories, aspirations and flaws. The cast does little to help this material. Johnson is undoubtedly the worst offender, with her interpretation of a savvy, cynical career woman more closely representing the tenth hour of a Xanax binge. To make matters worse, her character spends the film questioning why her two love interests would want to be with her and critiquing her materialism. The audience, I think, is meant to recognize some unexpected good in her that even she’s unaware of, but I mostly found myself agreeing with her negative observations.
The shaky script and lackluster performances ultimately doom the central love triangle. Lucy and John spend nearly all of their scenes arguing or lamenting their incompatibility with a palpable lack of warmth and chemistry. The audience has no real reason to root for them, which makes their eventual reunion feel more like two people approaching 40 settling rather than a genuine love story.
The other relationship is initially compelling, but ultimately falls flat. At the start of the film, Harry expresses what appears to be genuine interest and affection for Lucy, despite her lack of status seemingly making them mismatched. But, as if Song forgot this, their arc ends with Harry admitting he only wants to be with Lucy because they’re perfect together on paper. The resolution not only contradicts the established dynamic between the two characters but also removes all stakes from their relationship ending. Why should I care that these two characters who don’t love each other aren’t ending up together?
Further, the film’s clunky social commentary on the dating economy, beauty standards and wealth inequality rings hollow. Lucy vents about her clients’ superficiality, exemplified through their distaste for being matched with minorities or fat people, but the film prioritizes the narratives of thin white people. Lucy’s working-class identity is a key part of her characterization, but she breezes through the screen in designer clothes and lives in a spacious Manhattan apartment without roommates.
Lucy operates as a personification of a dating app’s algorithm, clinically pairing people based on surface preferences and traits. But the film’s lack of technology makes it somewhat anachronistic. The characters all have smartphones, but only use them to make phone calls. Social media is almost entirely absent from the film and actual dating apps are only mentioned in passing.
The conspicuous lack of technology shook the film’s attempt at a grounded critique. Traditional matchmaking has seen a slight boost, but it’s entirely dwarfed by the virtual market, with more than 364 million people worldwide using dating apps in 2024. Attempting to critique the struggles of modern dating without acknowledging technology’s overwhelming presence creates a fatal blind spot. What’s more is that Lucy never really struggles in her own dating life, aside from references to her past relationship with John. She instead shifts between two handsome men willing to commit, giving the impression that dating woes are problems faced only by real-life side characters.
Most egregious is the film’s clumsy handling of sexual assault when Lucy learns that her client Sophie (Zoë Winters) was attacked on a blind date. The news causes Lucy to temporarily spiral and question the ethics of her work; she gets chewed out by Sophie for not properly vetting her matches, but the plot soon shifts back to the love triangle. Sophie returns in the third act after her attacker shows up outside of her apartment to harass her, a plot device that allows Lucy to play the hero as she rushes to her aid. The two women reconciled before the narrative immediately returns to the Lucy and John melodrama. The choice to have the film’s “Notting Hill” moment outside of Sophie’s apartment while she sleeps off the trauma from the previous night is especially tasteless.
The sexual assault plotline ultimately attempts to be a vessel for Lucy’s growth, the catalyst to have her analyze the implications of her work and break her cold exterior. But shifting between how the assault impacts Lucy (an odd choice in and of itself) and the love triangle creates a tone issue that the film never quite overcomes.
“Materliasts” wants to be a film that warns against shallowness, but ultimately succumbs to one-note characters, a weak love story and a surface-level view of money, beauty and love.