One of the things people ask me — besides what it’s like to be so gorgeous — is what film criticism is actually good for. I have a lot of answers. I mean, I’d better since this is what I do for a living, but I mean it. Film criticism serves a lot of functions. It raises awareness of films that may otherwise be lost to history, or lost in the deluge of new releases. It illuminates different perspectives on the same work of art, allowing readers to explore vast and varied interpretations of each cinematic Rorschach test. But one of my favorites, and a vital function criticism will (and should) always serve, is that it is obligated to prepare readers for what a film actually is, not what it’s being marketed as.
Sometimes this means telling our readers that a movie, which the advertising would very much like you to think is good, isn’t very good. That’s not the case with Celine Song’s “Materialists.” It’s exceptionally intelligent and biting filmmaking. But sometimes it also means telling you that the trailers, which are designed to convince you to buy a ticket come hell or high water, aren’t preparing you for the correct experience. If you go into “Materialists” expecting a glossy romantic comedy — as the trailer for “Materialists” strongly implies, cutesy “Material Girl” cover and all — you may emerge deeply disappointed. If you go in expecting a pointed exploration of the commodification of modern romance, you may be deeply impressed.
“Materialists” has a lot of rom-com rhythms, so you could forgiven for thinking it’s going to be a feel-good love triangle date movie at the outset. Dakota Johnson stars as Lucy, a professional matchmaker in New York City, who hooks her clients up with partners based on absurdly specific, and frequently unrealistic criteria. To Lucy, who has been directly responsible for nine marriages in the last few years, love is math. A person’s romantic value is based on quantifiable factors, like age, height, income, body mass index and political beliefs. A rich man is a catch. A rich man who’s over six feet tall is a unicorn.
At her client’s wedding she meets Harry, played by Pedro Pascal, who is totally a unicorn. In the industry we call this “good casting.” She wants to turn Harry into sellable merchandise and pass him around to her clients, but Harry is only interested in Lucy, and she can’t resist his lavish lifestyle. She’s about to have sex with Pedro Pascal but she keeps getting distracted by his fancy apartment. That should tell you everything you need to know about her priorities.
Lucy’s ex-boyfriend, John, isn’t a unicorn. He’s played by Chris Evans. I’m not sure this qualifies as good casting. One half expects, when John is talking about how little he has to offer as an emotionally available, hardworking artist, that Helen Mirren’s voice will drop in from the “Barbie” sound stage and say “Note to the filmmakers: Chris Evans is the wrong person to cast if you want to make this point.”
Anyway, John is poor. He’s a very good person but he’s a very bad investment, and Lucy is self-aware enough to know that whatever feelings she has for John, she has more feelings for multimillion dollar penthouse apartments. And as she eventually discovers, when something goes horribly wrong at work, she may actually be a bad person. Or at least a person whose values have gone dismayingly astray.
“Materialists” takes a turn for the severe in the second half but it doesn’t come from out of nowhere. The first half refuses to be light and fluffy. Even scenes which would normally play up the romantic fantasy of, say, getting wooed by Pedro Pascal are starkly lit, and directed like the actors are doing their taxes. Celine Song, whose “Past Lives” was a powerful directorial debut and rife with personal sensitivity, isn’t making a mistake here. She’s calling her shots. She’s making a film about the people who sell the fantasy of love. She is not, herself, selling that fantasy. At least, not in the movie “Materialists.” Song wisely avoids any such hypocrisy, and in her second feature solidifies herself as one of the most interesting and thoughtful new filmmakers of the 2020s.
“Materialists” finds its way back to love, eventually, to an extent, but by way of self-analysis and self-incrimination. It’s not a heartwarming tale about true love finding a way. It’s an intellectual tale about love, true or otherwise, proving it’s a little more complicated than a checklist. Or maybe a lot less complicated. I suppose that depends on whether you’re more of a Lucy or more of a John.
I’m not sure “Materialists” qualifies as a “date movie” by any conventional definition, unless you and your date love artful cinema and don’t mind having a complex, not-very-sexy conversation afterwards. But I do heartily recommend you see “Materialists,” and that you see it for what it is, not what it kinda looks like from the outside, as pitched to you by the very sort of romance-commodification salespersons that Celine Song’s movie criticizes. It’s a great movie about romance — whether it’s technically “romantic” or not.
An A24 release, “Materialists” will open exclusively in theaters on June 13.