When the film began, my immediate reaction was, “Am I watching the right movie?” It opens with a prehistoric couple exchanging a flower ring in what appears to be one of the earliest symbolic acts of marriage—an unexpectedly poetic introduction. Materialists is the sophomore feature from Celine Song following her melancholic romance Past Lives.
We follow Lucy Mason (Dakota Johnson), a 30-something, single, independent woman living comfortably in a well-appointed one-bedroom apartment in New York City. A clear indicator that she’s doing well financially, especially in a city where the norm for many is cramped spaces and roommates. Lucy works as a matchmaker for Adore, a boutique dating consultancy app that prides itself on pairing soulmates. With razor-sharp instincts and a keen eye for chemistry, she’s celebrated for her 50% marriage success rate; a remarkable feat in the age of virtual dating. Her latest achievement is honored with a “Happy 9th Wedding” cake, commemorating her ninth match to make it to the altar. “I know a lot about dating, not love,” she confesses. Yet, the irony is palpable: despite her professional prowess in love, Lucy is an “eternal bachelorette” and “voluntarily celibate”—in simpler terms, she’s single by choice, or perhaps circumstance.
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At her client’s wedding, Lucy crosses paths with Harry (Pedro Pascal), who happens to be the groom’s brother-in-law. Harry is, by all accounts, the modern ideal, standing at six feet tall, employed in high-level finance at his family’s private equity firm, and living in a pristine $12 million Tribeca townhouse. He drinks moderately, smokes a little pot at social events (as many successful men do), and appears to have life perfectly organized. From his education and career to his wealth, height, and charm, Harry checks every box. Most significantly, he was born, raised, and remains, undeniably, rich. In the world of Adore, men like Harry and his newly married brother are referred to as unicorns: rare, almost mythical partners who seem too good to be true.
At the same event, Lucy also runs into her ex, John, someone she hasn’t seen in years. Now 37, John is a cater-waiter with roommates, still hustling in New York while holding onto the dream of making it as a theatre actor. His world is raw, chaotic, and unapologetically lived-in. The two share a five-year history, bonded by a mutual sense of scrappy survival: “Poor, shitty family. Voted for Bernie. Are we soulmates? Probably.”
As Lucy stands between these two men, one a promise of security and perfection, the other a reflection of her younger, more idealistic self. Materialists becomes a quiet tug-of-war between past and future, fantasy and reality.
Modern dating sits at the heart of Materialists, exploring the high-value vs. low-value human dichotomy. Harry represents the “high,” John the “low.” The film doesn’t shy away from contemporary references like TikTok and OnlyFans, subtly pointing to a world where identity is increasingly commodified. People are no longer just individuals; they are seen as assets. A potential partner must tick off the boxes on our internal checklist, curated from experience, desire, and digital conditioning. It’s not just about connection, it’s about optimization.
Lucy emotionally detached and data driven is fully immersed in this mindset. “I pitched him to her,” she says, as if love were a job placement. Her approach to dating is logical and transactional: matching, not emoting. “Do the math,” Lucy repeats like a mantra. In today’s swipe culture, we are taught that people are disposable. One failed date simply means “onward and upward.” The ease of access, thanks to dating apps, has given us a false sense of abundance, yet also created a kind of paralysis: what if our person is just one more swipe away? The unknown of where and how love will arrive makes it all the more confusing, even disheartening.
“Dating takes trial and error, risk, and a lot of pain. Love is easy—it just walks into your life.” Yet as she faces her own romantic crossroads, the film poses a haunting question: if miracles are rare and unicorns are fiction, is settling truly worse than dying alone?
There’s a sharp, ongoing commentary on the absurdity of physical metrics and the role they play in determining compatibility. Male height and female age become recurring punchlines, but also quiet tragedies. Is he actually 5’11” or just 5’9” in lifted sneakers? Is 39 still considered your thirties, or does it mark the invisible slide into irrelevance? These questions, while comical, reveal the exhausting precision with which people now approach dating. The standards we place on one another are so inflated and contradictory that real human connection gets buried beneath them.
Love was never meant to be filtered through apps or reduced to a list of negotiables. It wasn’t supposed to be about whether someone meets the height requirement for a rollercoaster or earns six figures by thirty. But in a world where dating feels like venture capitalism, Lucy’s logic isn’t just relatable, it’s heartbreakingly rational. For her, marriage is a business transaction. If the investment doesn’t yield returns, you walk away. But if it works, it affirms your womanhood in the eyes of a society that still equates bridal bliss with feminine fulfillment. A modern woman could choose anything, but a woman chooses to be a bride—not for love, necessarily, but for legacy, security, and status. Because love is emotional, but marriage is structural.
Material stability, Lucy suggests, is the cornerstone of a successful life. “Die alone or get a rich husband—same thing,” she quips. Scarred by the generational trauma of watching her parents fight about money, she’s determined not to repeat history. With John, she fears that emotional intimacy would come with financial instability, just like the volatile love she grew up witnessing. Instead, she chases the security embodied by Harry. “I don’t know if I like you or the places you take me to,” she confesses. “I like the way you pick up the bills.” For both of them, wealth becomes a love language, luxury equates to romance, and the price of a meal is shorthand for how deeply one is invested.
The math does not add up, and Lucy is brutally honest about her place in the dating economy: “I was born and raised poor. I work. I have debt. I’m a failed actress.” Yet Harry, raised in privilege, counters not with judgment but compassion: “I don’t want to date you for your material assets—and I think you’re underselling them by a significant margin. Date for material and intangible assets. I have enough of the former for the both of us.” Their dynamic underlines a central tension in modern dating: the notion that compatibility lies in shared economics, politics, and physical attraction. For Lucy and Harry, marriage is less about fantasy and more about negotiation. It’s a contract, yes—but one that, in the right conditions, might actually work for both parties.
“Love is easy—no math,” she reflects in the end, as her once rigid ideology begins to soften. She finally confronts the flaws in her worldview, understanding that emotional connection may matter more than assets or status. But while the film positions this realization as a kind of awakening, the romantic resolution left me unconvinced.
Celine Song once again proves herself as a singular voice in modern cinema. Her direction, paired with a keen visual sensibility and emotional restraint cements her place among the most compelling women filmmakers working today. Cinematographer Shabier Kirchner brings a soft poetry to the film’s visual language, capturing romantic stillness and ambient longing as a visual metaphor for Lucy’s emotional duality. The contrast in cinematography between her two lovers is especially striking: Pascal’s scenes are sleek, composed, and polished; Evans’ are handheld, grainy, almost unkempt, mirroring the divide between their worlds. Daniel Pemberton’s score punctuates the film with airy sparkle and, later, sobering intensity as the narrative grows more conflicted.
My issue isn’t necessarily with the love triangle dynamic or the film’s misleading marketing as a quirky rom-com when it leans far more into rom-drama territory—though both have caused their share of discourse. Rather, it’s that the central relationship simply doesn’t make sense. Lucy, a nearly 40-year-old woman with career success and independence, ends up sacrificing her future and stability for John, a man who remains largely unchanged from when they last parted.
Despite years apart, he shows little personal growth. “You’re the same as always,” Lucy admits, yet she still chooses him. A self-proclaimed starving artist, John proudly declares, “I just got the stipend from my play, so I’m feeling rich,” as if that qualifies as momentum. His last-ditch promises: auditioning for commercials, getting a manager, moving out of his shared apartment, all which feel more like desperate compromises than a mature foundation for a relationship.
And while her relationship with Harry may have been transactional on the surface, Lucy never gave it a chance to become emotionally meaningful. She kept Harry at arm’s length, rarely opening up, and even leaned on John for emotional support during their time together. The film never truly convinced me that John was her soulmate, nor did their chemistry radiate the kind of inevitable, sweeping connection the story seemed to hope for. In the end, the conclusion felt more like a resignation than a triumph of love.
Even if you struggle with Lucy’s choices or the film’s emotional payoff, Materialists seduces with its sensory beauty. Song crafts each scene with such care and intention, it’s hard not to be lulled into its cinematic rhythm.
It all comes full circle in the final moments, echoing the film’s opening image: a flower ring, once prehistoric and symbolic, now placed on Lucy’s finger in the present day. “Two cave people fell in love between the hunting and the gathering,” the voiceover muses. And perhaps that’s the ultimate question Song leaves us with: What makes two people perfect for each other—and who gets to decide if that’s enough?
