If you have seen the 2023 film, Past Lives, the wait for Canadian director and screenwriter Celine Song’s next project is over. Her directorial film debut with Past Lives received critical acclaim and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Song’s second feature film, Materialists, moves our hearts again in a different way—a little less bittersweet than her debut film.
Materialists is a New York-set romantic comedy that follows a professional matchmaker called Lucy (Dakota Johnson) who gets involved with a wealthy man named Harry (Pedro Pascal), but still harbours feelings for the broke actor-waiter, John (Chris Evans), she left behind. While this iteration of Song’s storytelling features a love triangle again, the circumstances are starkly different.
Song sacrificed experimental shots for pinpoint audio and sound design. The spatial sounds of a room, when heard, capture a whole array of sounds and conversations happening in a room. This grounded the film, and also worked in Past Lives. It is as if the audience is peeping into this conversation, in a room filled with other conversations.
One of the questionable production decisions was tapping Daniel Pemberton to score and compose Materialists, a film that utilized a lot more silence than hearing instrumentals. I can confidently say the score filled a lot of moments when Lucy is walking around the city or driving around.
“Song’s second feature film, Materialists, moves our hearts again in a different way—a little less bittersweet than her debut film.”
From composing upbeat and emotional scores for the Spider-Verse animated films to a rom-com, drama film like this one, Pemberton’s work got overshadowed by the perfectly silent moments. Materialists thrives in the silence where the characters are either thinking about their next response, or the actor can say their monologue without any score to back them up. There was a jive to Pemberton’s score in this movie, so there was some character to it.
Aside from the score, Materialists’ Pascal and Evans stood out like the shining stars they are—both charming in different ways. Their respective characters Harry and John represent two good caricatures of the ideal man—to a certain standard. Harry is a charming, rich man who is looking for love, without the arrogance of screaming money. In contrast, John is the everyday man who will grind to make ends meet—constantly striving for more.
Even though Harry is the rich guy, Pascal added his charisma to the character, making him less punchable. It was nice to see Evans have a normal-sized body in a role again, shrinking a bit back down from playing Captain America in the MCU movies. This time around, Evans brought out his natural, witty charms that I have not seen from him since The Perfect Score and Not Another Teen Movie.
As for Johnson’s role as Lucy, it worked for Johnson—almost perfectly made for her to play this exact role. The dialogue worked for Johnson, and her sometimes emotionless expressions worked for a character as calculating as Lucy. However, I was hoping to see a different performance out of Johnson in Materialists. So far, Johnson’s standout roles have been in Suspiria and Am I OK? But again, Johnson brought out the perfect Lucy.
“Materialists thrives in the silence where the characters are either thinking about their next response, or the actor can say their monologue without any score to back them up.”
Materialists nailed the social commentary on searching for love in our current world, in Western society. The discussion on marriage being transactional is an accurate exploration of the history of marriage and falling in love. The film had a lot of good talking points on what men and women are looking for in their future partners. By the second act, the movie took a turn I did not expect out of a film classified as a romantic comedy. But, it was an important topic to cover—somewhat fitting into the story well enough.
Song knows how to execute dramatic movies well when nuanced conversations and actions are shown onscreen. Materialists presented more as a drama film than a rom-com, and while it may be different in certain semantics, this experience did not give a traditional rom-com feel. Typical rom-coms in the similar vein are like Hitch or The Ugly Truth.
The vibes felt off at times in Materialists because it provided more high brow jokes instead of slapstick or physical comedy. This was not a super bad thing, the movie could have used a slightly more lighter vibes to it to really sell this is a rom-com.
The super strength of Materialists was its ability to accurately express how modern dating can be viewed. It also opened up the conversation on how matchmaking services would compete in a world where there are many apps to find people. The overall conversation on the pros and cons of dating in today’s society had some great commentary points—perfect to debate amongst friends at the dinner table.
