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Review: Materialists

Posted by: Matthew Ardill • June 14, 2025 @ 9:04pm

Filed under: Reviews

Going into the film Materialists, I didn't know much about the film. The buzz seemed to imply it was a romantic comedy. What I did know was the writer/director Celine Song had once reenacted the Chekhov play "The Seagull" on The Sims 4 and streamed it on Twitch. I also knew the film contained "America's Ass" Chris Evans, "America's Daddy" Pedro Pascal, and Dakota Johnson, whose only work I have seen was Madame Web, and I wasn't going to judge her on that – we all take jobs in our life where we do things we wished we hadn't.

Materialists was produced by A24 and it oozes that A24 vibe: thoughtful cinematography with at times unexpected stories. We open with the driven protagonist Lucy (Dakota Johnson) making her way to meeting a client, Sophie (Zoë Winters). The first impression of Lucy is driven, serious, and professional. We quickly learn she works for upscale matchmaking agency Adore and is the hot young matchmaker who's landed 9 weddings since she's started with the agency. While attending a wedding, she meets the brother of the groom, Harry (Pedro Pascal), who she quickly identifies as a unicorn (educated, rich, and tall). Trying to recruit Harry as a client, he instead insists on going on a date first. This is complicated by the fact that one of the servers at the wedding is her ex, John (Chris Evans), a 37-year-old actor living with three roommates and perpetually short on cash.

This sets up our dilemma, Lucy puts on airs of being driven by the desire to find comfort. While Harry treats her well, is charming, and when she sees his condo (one of the most realistic elements of the film are the... compromises people make to live in Manhattan) has to be reminded of what they were doing in the moment, we also see flashbacks to her tempestuous relationship with John, one that it's clear she's not over.

This film is something we don't often see, a mid-budget drama with light comedy; and when I say light, I mean a feather's touch. Any laughs in this film are derived from the moment and are truly situational. There aren't elaborate "jokes", but moments of comedy drawn from life. This could easily have been a play that John would have auditioned for. There are no grand set pieces, there are no major effects moments; this is a small story, told on an intimate scale, focusing on the characters.

When it comes to the characters there are no villains (well, save one who's a monster, but they are not in the core cast and are never seen on camera). These are people who are real. Johnson's Lucy is layered and nuanced – at surface read she's materialistic, but this is a trauma reaction. Harry is rich and comfortable, but broken and insecure in his own ways. While John is loving and adores Lucy, he's also head strong and inattentive to their relationship. These are real people with normal problems that happen in real life. The portrayal of dating in your 30s is also something that's grounded in a sense of reality. In my thirties I was divorced and single. Thankfully this was before the world of apps, but still in the thick of online matchmaking services. I know I went through many a date that was a study in checking boxes, analyzing the person across from you and calculating the ROI of this transaction. Life is finite and it comes down to who you want to spend the most finite of currency on, time.

As the film progresses though, the layers are peeled back and these traumas become more evident. The film is kind in as much as no one performance is evil, and each performer is given their room to establish their place and go with grace. One element that I felt uncomfortable with is the events leading up to the main conflict revolving around Sophie. The subject matter is handled in a mature and honest way, but the eventual resolution felt a bit "happy ending", and in a film that was so aligned with telling a real and emotionally-grounded story, this felt almost fairytale-like in nature (in the most dark fairytale one could imagine).

If you are looking for a rare film, a mature and heartfelt story which touches on the struggles of being older in the dating world and the trauma we carry into those situations, this is a great film for you.