"MATERIALISTS" - REVIEW
MATERIALISTS is not a romcom. It’s not really a takedown of romcoms, either. It’s not even entirely a deconstructed version of one. It helps to have seen a romcom, perhaps. For much of the telling, you may be questioning whether this was the movie to take your date to.
MATERIALISTS is a movie that loves love so much that it’s willing to probe it and dissect it to extract the value of it in a valiant effort to give back its meaning. It’s not afraid to acknowledge it at surface-level, and it’s not afraid to go to hell and back. It possesses a clinical, pragmatic view that can be mistaken for cynicism or pessimism. It explores how we run to and from the love we want or the love we think we deserve.
Most importantly, while being sly, clinical and pragmatic, MATERIALISTS is also freshly popped popcorn (albeit with more salt).
Set in a modern New York that its characters can either absolutely afford or really can’t, MATERIALISTS follows Lucy (Dakota Johnson, whose naturally steely intelligence helps make this her best showcase yet), a professional matchmaker for New York elites. Day and day out, she fields the concerns of affluent men and women, stating their requests that feel like nitpicks. Lucy has a cool demeanor and always has the right thing to say at just the right time to open up her clients to love, or at least to the hope of elevating their status. Lucy is adored at Adore, the matchmaking firm for which she has just closed in on her ninth wedding. While her results set up their clients for a stable future, Lucy herself believes that she will either marry rich, or die alone (to which her coworker quips, “same thing.”).
At this ninth wedding, Lucy meets the groom’s brother Harry, an impossibly handsome, kind and very rich man (a dreamy Pedro Pascal, who also has Marvel’s THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS and Ari Aster’s EDDINGTON due to arrive next month) at nearly the same moment that she runs into John (a steadfast Chris Evans), a theater actor who is working as a cater waiter for the same wedding. Lucy‘s veneer briefly cracks at the sight of John, and we learn that they were in a serious relationship that ended on their five-year anniversary over a money fight (this movie is refreshing in its fearlessness to talk frankly about the role money plays in relationships). Much like the characters do, the viewers will start doing the math about which suitor is better suited for Lucy. However, since this is written and directed by Celine Song, who made the swoon-worthy, achingly beautiful PAST LIVES, it tests (and tests and tests) Lucy’s claim that “love is easy.“
15 to 20 years ago, a movie with this setup would’ve starred Jennifer Lopez or Katherine Heigl and would’ve been pitched to 11, with convenient plot contrivances, extraneous, cartoonish side characters, poppy colors, maybe a little stunt casting, and—yikes—bright “comedy lighting” (and A24’s clever marketing does attempt to evoke this type of movie in the film’s second trailer, right down to a very 90s-sounding narrator). But once again, Song demonstrates her quiet confidence as a storyteller, allowing more naturalistic pacing to bring out the flavors of her crackling screenplay (the dialogue, especially in the first half hour, is so snappy and incisive that I could imagine this film having been made in the 1930s). The results are more populist than PAST LIVES, but her thoughtful approach prevails. She’s aided by Shabier Kirchner’s lush, classically elegant 35mm cinematography, Daniel Pemberton’s terrific electronic score, and immersive sound design, which imbue it with a palpable yearning we don’t often feel with setups this clever.
Once again, Song’s writing contains multitudes, and she presents many characters that feel like separate movies could be made about each of them (much of the easier comedy of the film comes from Lucy’s face-to-face meetings with prospective clients listing their impossible standards, weeding out even the faintest suggestions of shortcomings). In one terrific dinner scene between Lucy and Harry, it tries with great depth to look past Harry’s immense wealth as he pursues her and not just her services, where she almost talks herself out of the future she clearly wants. Furthermore, it examines the repercussions of hiring a matchmaking service (as a privileged means of mitigating risk vs. the risk of finding someone the old-fashioned way) through Lucy’s longtime client Sophie, who is approaching middle age and feels like her value is slipping away (played with hope and vulnerability by Zoë Winters). It also addresses with refreshing honesty how, even if one is really good at something, that burnout is possible, perhaps inevitable, challenging one’s notions of why we do what we do in the first place. Lucy grew up poor with parents that fought in front of her, and her success as a high-end matchmaker, beyond being a cool rarified job that grants her access to the upper echelons and a status she desires, is really her way of combating against that dreaded inevitability; an inevitability also deeply tied into the possibility of ending up with John, still working hard to become an actor, who still lives in a dump with two hilariously awful roommates (these scenes have a frenzied energy and a handheld shooting style, as if the apartment is too small to shoot it the way the rest of the movie is shot, and as if the movie itself can’t wait to get the hell out of there), and no clear path to deliver him from that lifestyle. It delves into these ideas so fully and exhibits them so bluntly that you could also probably call the movie REALISTS.
MATERIALISTS does all of this, and despite its cool color palette and businesslike gloss, it first and foremost believes in love, and manages to be fun, sensitive, sharp, graceful, a little mournful (sometimes all at once) and ultimately romantic, as it both bucks and satisfies the trends and tropes of “chick flicks.”
It’s a movie about wanting more, and the movie itself gives you more… and then rewards you for wanting it.
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Zach is a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Association (MNFCA). For more info about Zach, the organization, or to read other great reviews from other great Minnesota-based film critics, click here: https://mnfilmcriticalliance.wordpress.com/