WARNING: This review contains spoilers.
Midway through Materialists I came to the somewhat depressing conclusion that writer-director Celine Song and I are simply not simpatico. I admired the intelligence and craft of her previous film, Past Lives—and thought it was a fresh take on the immigrant experience. But I turned on Greta Lee’s Nora when she ignored her husband, Arthur, at the bar, instead speaking in Korean to her childhood love, Hae Sung—and never fully recovered from that.
Nonethless, I was looking forward to Materialists, as I love the idea of an intelligent female auteur working in the romantic movie space and the film has gotten nearly unanimous rave reviews.
And yet…here we go again. For the second time, I just wasn’t jibing with what I saw on screen. If you’ve seen the trailer, you get the gist. Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is a successful matchmaker in New York. Her job is basically to manage the expectations of her clients—especially the female ones. “I’m not building a man in a lab,” she tells one (I’m paraphrasing). “I can’t make him to your exact specifications.” The women of New York, it seems, mostly want the same thing: a man who is rich, has most (if not all) of his hair, and is tall. (The appeal of tall men is a weirdly major plot point in Materialists). The men of New York also want the same thing: Someone younger than them and way hot.
Her job is to get these singles to somehow meet in the middle. And she’s good at it.
Early in the film, she goes to a wedding of one of her clients—with nine marriages under her belt, she is the most successful matchmaker at her firm—and meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), the brother of the groom. He is handsome, rich, with a full head of hair, and, yes, tall. (Stands to reason, because he’s Pedro Pascal.) They begin to flirt—or, more accurately, he begins to flirt; she thinks she’s recruiting him as a client. (She calls him a “unicorn,” meaning he checks all the boxes: rich, handsome, nice, and available.) Just then, the cater waiter shows up, in the form of Chris Evans, with stubble, trying to look like a loveable schlub. Turns out, he’s a struggling actor, still living with two slovenly roommates, and Lucy’s ex. They broke up because he was poor. Lucy told him she “hated” herself for caring about his financial status, but she did.
So she begins to date Harry. She tells him, based on her calculations, she’s not good enough for him. He could bag someone better than her—younger, richer, prettier (puh-lease).
But I like you, Harry says.
Based on the trailer, I figured that Harry would be the guy she dated because of his wealth but Evans’ John was the one she really loved. And . . . that’s pretty much what happens. Except John is still the sweet, broke loser she broke up with for valid reasons and Harry is actually a great guy—a gentleman who woos her and, as we’ve established, really likes her.
There’s a major incident that is supposed to lead to Lucy’s awakening: One of Lucy’s clients, Sophie, is assaulted by the man Lucy set her up with. Lucy didn’t really think they were going to be a match, but she was getting desperate—Sophie was proving to be a tricky client, as she was of average beauty and average wealth, and was pushing 40. Lucy is understandably distraught over the news of the attack, all the more so when her boss shrugs it off as an unfortunate inevitability of the job. But I’m still not sure why this was the moment of epiphany for Lucy. It’s not her fault that this guy assaulted Sophie, nor does it send the message: Marry for love, not creature comforts.
(I’d like to take this moment to applaud Zoe Winters, who plays Sophie. She is heartbreaking in the role and her emotional rawness contrasts strikingly, almost jarringly, with Johnson’s somewhat affectless cool.)
So yeah, I just didn’t connect the dots in Materialists. Despite good acting across the board (or, more accurately, appealing movie star performances), I never bought it. I didn’t buy Captain America as a loser. I didn’t buy Dakota Johnson as a woman who would doubt her own desirability. And I certainly didn’t buy Pedro Pascal as the guy you take a pass on.