“The movie’s advertisements were disingenuous!” cry the rom-com fanatics. “It’s broke-man propaganda!” cry the soapbox wokes. “The female protagonist is insufferable!” cry the film bros, adjusting their zippers.
People assumed that “Materialists” was going to revive rom-coms — another film to add to the laundry list of 2000s cult classics. If anything, they were craving the same tropes — a hit to confirm their biases around love, chivalry and infinite female wisdom.
Unfortunately for them, “Materialists” does not fulfill that hit — it turns the rom-com archetype on its head. Many saw “Materialists” as “sending the wrong message.” But what “wrong” message is it sending, and for whom is it wrong?
Let’s pursue a more naked question: Who are materialists? Is “Materialists” — a movie about single New Yorkers — any good?
On its own terms, the answer is yes. It did exactly what it was supposed to do — criticize modern dating as a vain pursuit.
Director Celine Song, also behind the award-winning film “Past Lives,” is a class act. Song is a savant for capturing everyday beauties in her films — a talent that arrests the attention of the audience. “Materialists” also has a stunning A-list cast, full of our millennial favorites — Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal and — of course — Dakota Johnson. Johnson plays Lucy, the female protagonist.
If “Materialists” was a conventional rom-com, Lucy would typically be cast as the “prize” to be fought over, instead, this trope is never hashed out. Lucy is alone — burdened by her decisions as we follow her consciously throughout the movie.
This is the innovation of Song’s genre critique — it is laden in her style. Song deliberately creates scenes where John — played by Evans — and Harry — played by Pascal — hardly interact, drawing viewers out of their expectations of a “duel” for Lucy’s hand. By and large, the film allows the audience breathing room to witness the surface-level interactions Lucy has with her clients. The energy of rom-com cliches is replaced by Lucy’s immersion in vapid social interaction. She contemplates choosing to climb the social ladder while deprived of real, messy, stupid love. Love plays second fiddle in this film — it’s about Lucy’s freedom to pursue true happiness outside of social pressures.
No one is proving their undying love for each other; Prince Charming isn’t coming to save Lucy from her unstable, paycheck-to-paycheck situation. John represents any struggling man in our lives we’ve seen sink into the abyss because they cannot conform. As much as we hate to see the absurdity of their struggles, they’re real.
The film captures love at age 30 and over — on the verge of being “past one’s prime,” yet often still in pursuit of finding a life partner. This is Song’s realist turn as she illustrates the sleazy, yet glamorous New York City scene in all its late-stage capitalist glory. Lucy is a working-class matchmaker who is painfully aware of her client’s superficial wants that transform into needs.
Throughout the first act, Lucy needs to navigate male pattern baldness and women’s sagging skin — everything vain for her client’s meticulous preferences. She is a dating app personified.
Song’s scenes are literal gilded snapshots. Peel back the layers of gold and her clients are hollow shells. People making decisions based on networth, height and looks. In their hyperfixation, they lose out on human connection. The possibility of enjoying a humdrum life is stifled by the world of “Materialists.”
Song’s purpose is to confront us with how we blanch and decorate our lives to satiate the appetite of capitalism — one that prevents Lucy and John from being together throughout most of the film.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy underpins Song’s criticism of modern love; we have deprived ourselves of the zest of love and replaced it with vanity. No longer do we love ourselves naturally — amour de soi — we commit ourselves to amour propre — corrupt self-absorption and comparative success.
Song’s observation, as much as it is pessimistic, is spot on.
Capitalism awards competition and penalizes bona fide passion — a playbook many of us take for granted in our own lives.
As accurate and depressing as “Materialists” is, Song’s story ends on a high note. Lucy not only makes peace with John after a tumultuous back and forth, but takes a leap of faith toward genuine love — one in which they become each other’s ends.
The opening shot where cavewellers who had nothing to give but their company ties together with the rolling-credits song, “My Baby (Got Nothing at All)” — an ode to rediscovering why we fall in love in the first place.
Instead of remaining zealous ideologues, we should all have a golddigger’s attitude about this movie — maybe it shines a mirror on something we have sorely failed to address in our romantic escapades.
Sidney Uy is a philosophy junior and opinion writer for The Battalion.
