Watching writer-director Celine Song‘s follow-up to her feature debut, indie darling and 2023 Best Picture Oscar nominee Past Lives, all sorts of supposed cinematic influences ran through my mind from Billy Wilder’s The Apartment to James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News to Mike Nichols’ Working Girl and absolutely anything from Nora Ephron. I left the screening pondering I had simply seen the very best film concerning the seek for love in a few years.
Call it a romcom, name it a romdram, or any shorthand try and categorize it, however this can be a film that defies that form of straightforward description although on its floor it simply recollects so many Hollywood confections the place the woman is torn between two guys each vying for her everlasting love. In this case although it’s much more sophisticated for Lucy, a personality completely matched with a by no means higher Dakota Johnson, who as a matchmaker in a excessive finish New York City company referred to as Adore has an amazing observe report for hooking up others however not herself. Fast meals TV matchmaking The Bachelor that is not.
Song truly labored as a matchmaker when she was a NY struggling playwright and clearly that was the inspiration, or kernel of an thought, to observe up such a extensively praised characteristic debut as Past Lives which in its personal distinctive approach has its lead feminine caught up another way between two males and two occasions of life. It too defied straightforward definition and, coupled with Materialists, confirms Song one of the thrilling new filmmaking voices of her era.
So Lucy makes about $80,000 a 12 months looking for excellent matches for prime finish purchasers with a guidelines of desires to find the best companion. Vignettes with a few of them are hilarious, each for males who wish to cease at age 29 as consideration for a match or ladies with their very own quirky wants. In this world love is a negotiation, and in Lucy’s thoughts, personally and professionally, cash is a giant a part of the attraction. This goes again to her personal expertise as we see in a fast flashback to the fifth anniversary date together with her boyfriend John (Chris Evans), Both have been struggling actors once they met, John had no cash, a beat up automobile and lived with two obnoxious roommates. On this anniversary date we see all of it blow up as Lucy lastly realizes she is sick of being poor, or at the very least with John. They break up, time passes, and now on the wedding ceremony of considered one of her profitable matches Lucy is a visitor and runs into John working with the catering firm. We can nonetheless see sparks, however it’s clearly over. At the identical nuptials she meets Harry (Pedro Pascal) , brother of the groom, who seems like he has simply come out of central casting, a wealthy, profitable commodities dealer dwelling in a $12 million penthouse, suave, charming, good-looking – you identify it. She calls these “perfect” guys Unicorns, and doesn’t attempt to decide him up for herself however as an alternative as a possible date and a surefire winner for any variety of her feminine purchasers.
It seems, and sure in traditional romcom style, Harry has no real interest in them, solely in Lucy, and this does result in the matchmaker checking off her personal record and doing one thing fairly unprofessional in her occupation by caving to Harry’s advances. But will it turn out to be real love or simply one other negotiation, one which Harry is simply as snug getting into into as Lucy thinks she is. Meanwhile John comes out and in of the image reminding us he’s the one who nonetheless loves Lucy for who she was, even when she doesn’t fairly know now who she is.
Song has forged her three results in perfection. Johnson nails all of the insecurity beneath the floor of this seemingly assured businesswoman, and is excellent in what could also be her finest display screen outing but. Evans, at all times a greater actor than he’s given credit score for, right here doesn’t miss a beat as a man nonetheless struggling as an actor and as a person looking for his real love, and realizing he in all probability already did – the one which obtained away. Pascal, in a task that would have been one dimensional, provides Harry real humanity and likeability. This is somebody we can also root for, and in a key scene the place he reveals his stunning vulnerability (it has to do with a form of cosmetic surgery I by no means knew existed) he’s heartbreakingly actual.
Among the supporting forged the standout is Zoe Winters, an Adore consumer who first will get rejected by a match she was keen to accept, after which in extremely dramatic style because the sufferer of sexual assault by one other match arrange by Lucy who understandably is devastated when she learns of the disastrous date she felt chargeable for. This sequence goes into a lot darker territory than any within the style often do, but it surely additionally feels proper nowadays to deal with it. Also fantastic is Marin Ireland as Lucy’s boss, a girl who has seen all of it, and Louise Jacobson who turned from Adore consumer to bride.
I’ve to say one other fundamental star of this movie is New York City itself, seen because the backdrop of so many romantic comedies however right here fantastically shot by Cinematographer Shabier Kirchner and dressed by Production Designer Anthony Gasparro as a metropolis the place the proper match is tough to mild. A montage sequence that includes the lilting Harry Nilsson tune, “I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City” is a real spotlight (trivia reality: Nilsson wrote that tune for Midnight Cowboy but it surely was changed as an alternative by “Everybody’s Talking (at me)”). Another shout out to Daniel Pemberton’s properly nuanced music rating.
Materialists comes on the proper time for a “genre” that studios have forgotten audiences nonetheless need, and hopefully will stand out in a summer time of tentpoles and motion as a pleasant various. Song has made a movie that oddly may be admired by romantic purists and cynics, a film whose finish credit happen over the sight of a vastly busy New York Marriage Bureau visually assuring us typically folks do discover that elusive match, or at the very least hope so.
Producers are Song, Christine Vachon, Pamela Koffler, David Hinojosa.
Title: Materialists
Distributor: A24 movies
Release date: June 13, 2025
Director-screenplay: Celine Song
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal, Zoe Winters, Marin Ireland, Louise Jacobson
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr, 56 min