Materialists

Writer & Director: Celine Song

Lucy Mason (Dakota Johnson) is a successful matchmaker. Who makes her decisions based on statistics and not heart with height, salary, and education her measures. While not focused on making her own match, things change when she attends the wedding of one of her clients. Here she meets the groom’s brother, Harry (Pedro Pascal), not only a potential unicorn client, but someone who shows plenty of interest in her and her ex-boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), who while they remain friends, John is still very in love with Lucy. But when there is an incident at work, it changes everything she thinks she knows about dating and herself.

I really enjoyed Materialists. While it’s a film that ultimately ends up where you expect, it takes a very smart, sometimes uncomfortable and often unexpected route to get there.

While publicised as a romcom, Celine Song has made it much more. It raises questions about how we value and measure ourselves and others in today’s society and whether relationships are nothing more than a transaction. But it also asks some much darker questions about society and especially the dangers too many women face and how society protects and accepts certain behaviour.

It’s a film that moves seamlessly between tones, from what seems a predictable romcom into something smarter and more probing as it examines the lengths some will go to to increase what their “value”. It’s never quite the film you expect.

Its main characters all put in solid performances, Evans and Pascal are always likeable presences. Although Dakota Johnson finds it tricky to bring warmth to Lucy’s calculating character. There is an excellent supporting performance from Zoë Winters as Sophie, who is at the heart of Lucy’s life changing events.

While Materialists is a film that ends up where you imagine it always will, its route there is smart, often surprising and occasionally dark. It switches between tone seamlessly and asks probing questions about dating, objectification and what society deems acceptable. A smart look at how we value ourselves and others.