Love in the modern age has undergone significant changes compared to its past. For one thing, marriage meant something more than a business deal, but as time went on, it became more about checking boxes than feeling deeply.
Dating in the modern age is similar to playing games to reach a certain level. Men and women have been pressured to be reserved and not fully open themselves to the feeling of being consumed by someone. Dating has become a facade. It has lost all meaning in searching for the person who best suits you.
In Celine Song’s sophomore feature, Materialists, she returns to the origin of what it means to be a partner. In true A24 fashion, the film begins in a rather unique way but is significant by the end.
When the first couple decided to get married, there were no boxes to be checked. They questioned how their partner could support them emotionally, mentally and spiritually. They contemplated whether they could provide each other a safe, supportive and loving home to raise a family.
Simplicity was the focus for Song on telling this modern romantic drama. She stripped down the problems with modern dating to get to the root of why people get married now. Sometimes it’s a marriage of convenience, other times it’s transactional because they’re past a certain age, and for others, it’s still a game based on preference.
When we meet Lucy (Dakota Johnson), she is walking through the streets of Manhattan a la Devil Wears Prada chic, and she bumps into a handsome gentleman who could be single. She sees the potential for her matchmaking agency and quickly offers him her card.
Lucy knows dating thoroughly, but has always been challenged with the idea of love. We see glimpses of what she wants in her love life by the way she interacts with her clients. She entices them with the image of growing old with a partner, and struggling through the difficult moments in life and not just the materialistic side of dating.
While Lucy goes through the motions of matchmaking, she accidentally stumbles upon a unicorn of a man herself. When she meets Harry (Pedro Pascal) at one of her clients’ weddings, he is intrigued by her perspective on dating and the mathematical way she pairs two people together. Their relationship is formed solely based on a subconscious experiment by Lucy.
That same night, she bumps into her ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans). As Harry goes to order her a drink, John places her favourite combination of Coke and beer right in front of her. In that moment, the spark between John and Lucy was felt. The way Song executes their relationship is poignant because she pinpoints certain moments of a relationship that stay embedded in your memory long after it may have ended.
The beauty of the relationship between John and Lucy is their undeniable chemistry and genuine love for one another. You can feel the heartbreak in John’s eyes when he looks at what he lost. Song created such tender moments between them, but also showed why they weren’t compatible.
While Lucy weighs the relationship in her present with her past, the lines between knowing a person so deeply overlap. Celine Song’s script is intricate and has Lucy spiral because she believes herself to be a fraud in matchmaking. She sells this idea of finding the perfect match when she aches for an imperfect one herself.
Society has sadly conditioned people to expect so much of someone when they can’t offer it themselves. Love is supposed to be a natural give and take of caring about your partner. Not what they can do for you.
You’re supposed to be building something together, which is the whole purpose of marriage. Humans are more than boxes to fill, love is supposed to be natural and not transactional, without discrepancies. Truly loving someone with their flaws and all because that’s what makes them perfect for you, not for anyone else.
The contrast between the two relationships is distinct, and you know who Lucy belongs with the entire time. Relationships all stem from the way parents have taught their children how to love. And sadly for Lucy, she had a difficult upbringing. The next generation often wants to break the cycle, and she looked at the financial aspect in relationships. Thus being materialistic.
Song explores the hidden reasoning as to why relationships fail because people refuse to look in the mirror and take accountability for their flaws. That’s the problem with modern dating. No one wants to try or even see the other’s perspective. They refuse to bend or even to compromise because they see their life in a certain way. The sooner people realize that life isn’t linear and that it can change in an instant, the sooner they’ll find their partner who will be riding the wave with them.
When Lucy is listening to her clients and what they want, there’s a pensive look in her eyes. She weighs what they say and reflects on her life. In small moments, Daniel Pemberton’s score captures the sadness and melancholic reflections of love. It’s a score that is composed to bring reassurance and ease when falling in love with your partner. It’s soft and earnest with John, then more charming and furtive with Harry.
Materialists deconstructs modern dating and shatters the perception of what should be attainable. Celine Song reminds audiences why we should remain hopeful for love in our lives and the importance of finding a life partner. The locations became very important as they showed the reality of the characters. The difference between their homes and their work lifestyle became integral in navigating their relationships with one another.
The performances by Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans are sublime and possibly their best in a while. Pedro Pascal was charming and the perfect choice to contrast Chris Evans. Out of the three, Evans’ performance was the most heartbreaking because you felt the longing and the pain from him. Song wrote and directed beautiful monologues throughout about love, but the confession from John at the second wedding was one for the romance history books.
Celine Song recaptured the magic of the romantic dramedy from the early 2000s and even earlier. She accurately depicted the truth of modern dating, which no one has held a mirror up to. No one has attempted to explore how misinterpreted dating has become, and Materialists should get everyone back on track with the hopefulness it ends on.
4.5/5
Review by: Amanda Guarragi
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