In Materialists, Dakota Johnson shines as a high-end matchmaker torn between love, wealth, and identity in a romantic drama that’s as thoughtful as it is genre-defying.
Celine Song’s Materialists is many things: a romantic comedy, a nuanced relationship drama, and most of all, a reminder of how fresh, meaningful, and layered a love story can still be when told with elegance, wit, and humanity. Following her acclaimed debut Past Lives — an Oscar-nominated meditation on love and memory — Song returns with another emotionally complex tale, this time shifting from nostalgia to the hard-edged present-day battleground of love, ambition, and class in New York City.
At the center is Lucy, played with career-best vulnerability and charm by Dakota Johnson. A successful matchmaker at a boutique agency called Adore, Lucy helps wealthy New Yorkers craft love as if it were a luxury commodity. Yet ironically, she struggles to find her own. She’s excellent at checking off her clients’ boxes — income, status, aesthetic — but her own emotional checklist is far messier.
When we first meet Lucy, she’s earning $80,000 a year while navigating a string of hilariously awkward client demands — one man only wants to date women under 29, another woman needs a man who cooks vegan Moroccan food on Thursdays. Despite the absurdity, the job is a reflection of Lucy’s worldview: that love is transactional, and money is emotional security.
But this perspective is rooted in her past. A flashback reveals her fifth anniversary dinner with John (Chris Evans), her then-boyfriend and fellow struggling actor. He’s broke, has a rusty car, and lives with two juvenile roommates. Lucy, fed up with instability, breaks it off. Years later, they reunite — awkwardly — when he’s working as a server at a wedding she attends.
That same night, she meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), the groom’s ultra-wealthy brother, who embodies every “perfect man” stereotype: rich, successful, suave, and emotionally available. Lucy views him as a match for one of her clients — until he turns the tables and shows interest in her. Against her better judgment, she starts seeing Harry, testing her beliefs about compatibility, ambition, and affection.
As Lucy juggles John and Harry, Materialists veers away from cliché, opting instead for ambiguity and emotional honesty. John, with his earnestness and unglamorous persistence, represents a past Lucy once ran from. Harry, by contrast, promises stability, security, and upward mobility. But Song asks: at what cost?
Celine Song, drawing from her own time working as a matchmaker in New York, again shows her gift for writing morally complicated women and tender, authentic male characters. Her script doesn’t judge Lucy — it simply invites us to understand her contradictions.
The supporting cast is stellar. Zoe Winters is unforgettable as a client who endures a traumatic date gone horribly wrong, bringing a moment of real-world gravity and consequence to the otherwise stylish romance. Marin Ireland offers wry wisdom as Lucy’s seen-it-all boss, while Louise Jacobson adds brightness as a former client turned glowing bride.
Aesthetically, the film is a valentine to New York. Shabier Kirchner’s cinematography captures the city with a softness and warmth that feels both classic and contemporary. A romantic montage set to Harry Nilsson’s “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City” is a standout — a tender callback to old-school romance in a thoroughly modern film. Daniel Pemberton’s score complements the mood with subtle emotional beats.
Pascal brings an unexpected tenderness to Harry, including a revealing moment about an unusual plastic surgery that strips his character of vanity and adds depth. Evans is quietly compelling as a man who may have failed Lucy once, but never stopped loving her.
Materialists is ultimately about emotional capitalism — how we price love, how we value each other, and how we negotiate our own worth in a world obsessed with status. But it’s also hopeful. It reminds us that despite the noise, love can still surprise us — maybe not perfectly, but honestly.
As the closing credits roll over scenes of the New York Marriage Bureau brimming with hopeful couples, Song leaves us with the belief that love, though imperfect and elusive, is still very much alive in the modern world.