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Materialists, starring Dakota Johnson and directed by Celine Song
Trailer: A24

Materialists
Directed by Celine Song
Rated R
Dated 13 June 2025
#MaterialistsMovie

It's hard to look past its faults and love a movie like Materialists.

Matches Made in Money

Materialists movie poster featuring Dakota Johnson

Materialists has some interesting thoughts on dating and marriage, but, like many of the relationships in it, after two hours it wears out its welcome.

The wordless opening, featuring a caveman and cavewoman — the first couple to profess their love for each other and get married while living a really simple life — belies what’s to follow for the next two hours: lots and lots of dialogue about love, dating and marriage. But, in retrospect, nary a word about romance.

Cut to Manhattan, modern day. The focus is on the tough dating marketplace and one’s "worth" based on height, weight, wealth, physical shape, age, looks, wealth, personality, lifestyle and, yes, wealth. It’s hard to complain about a movie featuring characters focused on the material — money, that $12 million penthouse apartment in Tribeca, the luxe lifestyle — when the movie is titled Materialists.

Enter Lucy (Dakota Johnson, star of the notorious 50 Shades trilogy), a matchmaker for Adore, a dating agency that caters primarily to the upper crust of society, or at least those with ambitions to get there through a relationship. She’s celebrating a major career milestone: her efforts in matchmaking have led to her ninth couple to tie the knot.

Woot.

Wedding Crashers

Lucy buckets, categorizes and pigeon-holes everybody she meets. It’s something of an occupational hazard or trap. And Lucy’s voluntarily celibate; she’s prepared to die alone. That wouldn’t seem to be the typical inspirational aspiration of a professional matchmaker.

While at a wedding ceremony, she meets the brother of the groom. That’s Harry (Pedro Pascal, who’s becoming a little overexposed in the wake of Mandalorian’s success). He’s made a fortune in his family’s private equity business. He’s a unicorn in the matchmaking world. He’s a good-looking, wealthy man living a healthy lifestyle. He’s also tall thanks to surgery that added six inches to his height, a move which can double a man’s value in the cutthroat dating marketplace (or so Lucy posits). And he’s so... Calm. It’s a bland, flat calm.

As it happens, while chatting with Harry, Lucy craves a Coke and a beer and — voila — it’s served instantly by her ex-boyfriend, John (Chris Evans, Captain America: The First Avenger). John’s the classic starving artist; he has acting dreams (not really the ambitious variety, though) and he stays busy bouncing from one catering or waitering gig to the next. It’s a stereotypical life.

There it is. Not exactly a cute setup. Perhaps a little forced. But the love triangle is set.

Passionless Play

While Materialists is humorous, it’s a bit of a push to refer to it as a romantic comedy. Remember, nary a word is spoken about "romance." This is about the business of relationships — both as a matchmaker and as a participant. It’s about the math of love, the finances. The cold calculation of what can be tolerated and what’s non-negotiable.

And therein lies the biggest problem with Materialists. It has a lot say (remember: lots and lots of dialogue), but for a movie about love and relationships, there’s a complete lack of passion among any of the characters, not just the leads. There’s also a surprisingly limited amount of drama. The most dramatic element comes by way of one of Lucy’s clients, who’s raped on a date setup by Lucy.

There’s no eureka moment. No hearts seem to even flutter. Maybe that’s the point in this story that juggles the pros and cons of love and dating, but does it work as a movie? Not really. Actually, the Beatles summed it up much more concisely in a two-minute song, Can’t Buy Me Love, 61 years ago.

Another challenge is, while the situations are moderately interesting, the lead characters are not. There’s no desire to be any one of those people or even hang out with them. Date them? Nah. Marry them? Heck no. Does it matter who Lucy "picks," if she picks one at all? Not in the least bit in this or any other universe.

That lack of interest comes from a complete lack of chemistry. It’s not really a love triangle because there’s no real competition between Harry and John. They’re oddly cool about the other being around.

And that, in turn, births a credibility gap. It’s not believable any of them feel strongly about anything, let alone love. It’s a strange drama in which even the fights lack a shred of intensity, or even a raised voice. (Well, there’s one argument between Lucy and John in the middle of a busy street near Times Square, but even that’s by way of a flashback. And talking loudly is required to be heard above the din of traffic.)

A Person’s Worth

Ultimately, it’s a movie — like the most insecure of Adore’s clients — suffering through an identity crisis. The movie’s official one-sentence summary is this: "A young, ambitious New York City matchmaker finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex."

And yet that’s not the story at all. Lucy’s not torn. She flat-out doesn’t love Harry (he might be "perfect" in the marketplace, but he’s hardly her perfect match) and she lets John stick around primarily because water finds its own level.

There are some funny bits, like a woman who emphatically declares to Lucy, "I’m trying to settle!"

Another woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown is in tears ahead of her wedding, but not tears of joy. She’s lamenting her own status as a bride-to-be. After all, as she mulls it over, she’s not forging a relationship between two kingdoms, and her family doesn’t need a cow. Why is she getting married? Here she is, a modern woman whose family is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on her wedding celebration. Why, oh why?

Then she realizes she loves her man because he makes her sister jealous; she’s got something better than her. She’s "won" — but Lucy helps put it in a more positive perspective: her husband-to-be makes her feel valuable.

So... Not romantic.

As in the Beginning

John, of all the characters, delivers what’s arguably the most romantic line in the movie, "When I see your face, I see wrinkles, gray hair and children that look like you." Not exactly "You complete me," but it’ll have to do.

Ever the fatalist, Lucy calls out some of the obvious: dating is a risk, it’s pain, it’s a whole bunch of trial and error. But then she goes south from there. In her view, the ultimate goal is to find a nursing home partner, a grave buddy, somebody to change each other’s diapers and bury each other (not that such a concept is possible, but it’s the thought that counts).

All that relationship commentary sinks to a point of navel-gazing where it starts to sound like an overly introspective and overly serious student film. Maybe that’s what writer/director Celine Song (Past Lives) acknowledges in the play-within-a-movie, Tom and Eliza, starring John. It’s a way-off-Broadway play that from the glimpse provided seems like a slog. Outside the theatre, posters list John Pitts as the star and Celine Song as the director. Cute(ish).

Okay. Good points made, but not well-executed.

At least Song circles back to that cute prehistoric couple. As the end credits roll over a Manhattan marriage license office, the couples come in, get their papers, then exit the scene. It’s a wide diversity of couples. What brought them together? Why are those two together? The mind wanders and wonders. Like the movie’s beginning, it’s also a dialogue-free scene.

Then that "first couple," oh so happy, come in and fill out the forms. As the credits end, they’re the last couple to leave the screen.

• A slightly altered version was originally published at MovieHabit.com.