Director Celine Song’s confident follow-up to Past Lives takes the glossy sheen of a rom-com and smashes it against the sharp edges of reality, exploring love, money, and the messy space in between.
“Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match …” The familiar tune from Fiddler on the Roof may belong to another century, but the longing it captures is timeless. In Materialists, that same search for love gets a glamorous and modern twist.
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At the heart of the story is Lucy Mason (Dakota Johnson), a high-end matchmaker who can pair off anyone but herself. Enter Harry Castillo (Pedro Pascal), a wealthy private equity manager, and John (Chris Evans), Lucy’s broke-but-charming ex, who reappears at the worst (or best) possible moment. Suddenly, Lucy is balancing champagne flutes, heartbreak, and the million-dollar question: Is love about ideals or pragmatism?
While marketed as a rom-com, Materialists digs deeper than fizzy montages and witty banter — though a scene where Lucy’s clients rattle off ludicrous match requirements is a highlight. Writer-director Celine Song (Past Lives), who drew on her six-month stint as a professional matchmaker in New York, infuses the glossy love triangle with pointed observations about how dating has become transactional in an age of apps, algorithms, and social climbing.
“We’re seeing the way commodification and objectification of human beings is happening,” Song tells Tatler Asia. “And that always leads to dehumanisation. The awful thing is that this dehumanisation is happening in the realm of love — something that’s supposed to be sacred.”
But don’t mistake Materialists for a downer. Beneath its sharp critique, the film is brimming with warmth, wit, and that intoxicating star power of Johnson, Pascal, and Evans — three very attractive leads. Materialists gets audiences invested not just in which suitor Lucy will choose (if she ends up with either at all), but in what Harry and John represent. A clear-eyed take on the messiness and frustration of modern dating, the movie seduces you with Hollywood glitz while asking uncomfortable but necessary questions about what we really want from love.
In a landscape crowded with superheroes and franchises, Materialists feels like both a throwback and a revelation — a swoony, stylish reminder that the most daring leap of all is still into the heart.
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Lucy thinks she has love down to a formula. When she meets a man on the same night as a chance encounter with an old boyfriend, she's torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex.
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