Writer and director Celine Song’s “Materialists” (2025) is a thought-provoking film. Although, for a movie about relationships, it is rather unromantic. On its face, “Materialists” is a romantic drama about the difficulty of finding a partner during late-stage capitalism — but the failure to capture how unequal heterosexual relationships continue to be makes it hard to buy the romance it sells.
The film’s protagonist, Lucy (Dakota Johnson), is a New York City matchmaker at a firm that promises their high-heeled clientele access to high-quality matches. Looking for love for others all day has turned Lucy off pursuing it for herself. However, her love life comes into focus when she finds herself torn between Harry (Pedro Pascal), a wealthy suitor, and John (Chris Evans), her former boyfriend and a talented struggling actor. Unfortunately, watching Lucy abandon her plan of remaining a bachelorette and dying alone means watching her choose between two unsuitable options.
Lucy is quite good at her job. Several of her matches have resulted in marriage, and she tries to meet her clients’ exacting standards while passing minimal judgement. Her male clients seek “fit” (i.e., very slim) women in their mid-20s to early 30s, and her female clients desire men who are at least 6 feet tall and affluent. These are positioned as equally shallow demands, and yet only the latter group is open to dating beyond their narrowly-defined criteria, an imbalance Song portrays but does not scrutinize.
Watching clients blithely make racist, classist and fatphobic remarks (and seeing Lucy acquiesce to their demands) is both fascinating and horrifying. In an economic system that encourages self-optimization and commodification, this ideology has invariably shaped how people approach their search for romantic partners. Marriage has always been a business deal. Lucy’s actuarial approach to matchmaking underscores the problems with modern dating, and the love triangle she finds herself in demonstrates how much she has internalized this skewed value system.
Lucy and Harry become involved after she tries to recruit him as a potential client. In Lucy’s industry, Harry is a unicorn: tall, handsome, generous, debonair, born and raised in a wealthy family — truly, he has too many positive attributes to list. He charms her on a series of dates, and she questions why he is courting her. Lucy is attracted to the idea of marrying a wealthy man but doesn’t feel worthy of Harry’s affection. The numerous times she discourages his pursuit indicates deeper issues with self-worth.
Meanwhile, there is an easy rapport between John and Lucy that pulls them back into each other’s orbit. Lucy is charmed by his knowledge of her likes and dislikes, but being known is not the same as being understood. Financial conflicts are the main reason their relationship failed, and Lucy criticizes herself for not being able to accept John’s inability to provide the luxurious lifestyle Harry can. John appears sincere when he declares his love and promises Lucy their relationship will hold steady, but remember: she’s dealing with someone who can be whatever a scene calls for.
Song, in interviews, has addressed the tension between Lucy’s options. Responding to the assertion that John is an unworthy suitor because of his financial status, she said “Materialists” aims to counter the normalization of classism. Song’s vision, however, is undercut by the film’s execution of the relationship triangle, as any social commentary she attempts is obscured by the characters’ flaws. John is an unsuitable partner — but not because he is broke. Rather, his lack of fitness for partnership derives from his inability to be honest with Lucy about his financial limitations. Though Song might have you believe otherwise, Lucy is not an elitist who looks down on John: she is just trying to bargain her way out of relationship inequality. With John, Lucy will be an overfunctioning breadwinner.
Meanwhile, Harry’s largesse indicates money won’t be a problem, but that doesn’t mean he’s the better choice. Harry has expectations for the role of “wife” he believes Lucy can fulfill. Unfortunately for Harry, Lucy disagrees. Choosing Harry also seems less desirable because of a baffling third-act revelation. Putting aside the abnormally late self-disclosure, partnering with Harry portends much emotional management. Love should require work, not toil!
Given the film’s themes of class, it feels relevant to note Johnson feels slightly miscast as Lucy. The character grew up poor, and she’s supposed to be comfortable in the world of her elite clients but not of it. Johnson, though, enunciates the letter “t” in words such as matches and meeting, using the patrician diction of someone who unironically uses “summer” as a verb. Performance issues aside, Lucy’s character is inconsistent: her incredulity at a terrible experience one of her clients has is hard to believe, given her constant assertion that dating is risky.
“Materialists” has been a box-office juggernaut this year, proving that audiences long for original films depicting the trying quest for love and that love feels impossible when two people don’t have a shared definition of what it means. While “Materialists” defines love as the “last surviving ideology,” I think it’s better conceptualized as a set of duties performed for your beloved, undertaken freely and daily with no expectation of compensation. I doubt I’ll be able to sell this vision. I’ve never been a very good entrepreneur.