A24 Should one marry for love or money? That's the thorny question at the heart ofMaterialists,the new sociological rom-com from writer-directorCeline Song(Past Lives). The query may feel mercenary, but that's by design, as Song seeks to dissect the realities of the fact that marriage is and always has been a business deal, particularly when it is literally your business, as it is for heroine Lucy (Dakota Johnson). Song draws on her own experiences as a professional matchmaker to craft her protagonist, a young woman who sees success in dating as pure mathematics. Atsushi Nishijima/A24 Lucy is caught in her own push-and-pull between what she says she wants from a partner and the reality of meeting your partner. She vacillates between ex, John (Chris Evans), a perpetually broke aspiring actor, and finance guy Harry (Pedro Pascal). I hesitate to call their interactions a love triangle since Lucy keeps the boundaries of each relationship fairly distinct, but there is the classic suspense of who she will choose. Once upon a time, Lucy and John were deeply in love, living in a tragic apartment in New York, pursuing their dreams of acting. But after a series of disappointing anniversary meals and growing tension over money, she dumped him because she "hated" him for being poor. It might sound callous, but anyone who has ever witnessed a relationship fall apart under the strain of financial stress can understand the truth of the experience. Atsushi Nishijima / A248BIM Lucy, as we meet her, is the best matchmaker at her firm and hard as nails — less a gold digger so much as a diamond miner with a pickax. Her job is to evaluate a person's tangible assets — their height, weight, build, income, age, and find them a match who checks all (or most) of their boxes. But over the course of the film, Lucy discovers, both in her personal and professional life, that a true perfect match involves something far more intangible than the numbers she can record on a form. There's a version of this film where Lucy would be the villain, the side character keeping a doe-eyed heroine from a man who can't see the ideal woman right in front of him. A read where Lucy is the dreaded "unlikeable" woman. But Song is far too smart for that. Instead, she employs the trappings of romance to explore larger questions of marriage, love, and the complexities of gender politics. Materialistsshares more in common with the wry social satire of aJane Austennovel than a classic rom-com (excepting the strange and utterly unnecessary frame story of the first cave-people to get married). Similar to Austen, Song understands that while a love match is, of course, ideal, the realities of life mean that oftentimes security and other considerations come into play (and you don't see any Austen heroines marrying poor men, do you?). Atsushi Nishijima / A248BIM Song and her cinematographer, Shabier Kirchner, shoot New York City with the golden sheen of a romantic comedy. It's all sleek lines and golden, luscious interiors, the New York of Nora Ephron. It contrasts with the darker blues and grays that dominated the palette of Song'sPast Lives,lending Lucy's world the idealized setting that she constructs for her clients but scarcely believes in herself. Johnson, who can often be cool and detached in her work, is perfectly cast as Lucy, using that quality to underscore Lucy's brittleness and the way her past disappointments have jaded her. Lucy is blunt at every turn, often to the point of brutality, but her assessment of the ways in which financial security remains a key dating consideration for even the most independent of women is both keenly perceptive and a personal defense mechanism. In a world where marriages are (typically) no longer about uniting kingdoms, acquiring land, or trading livestock, what is their value and purpose?Materialistsdoesn't necessarily set out to answer that, but it wants us to ponder it all the same, via Lucy's relationships with two men. A24 On paper, Harry is perfect —a "unicorn," as Lucy describes him.Pedro Pascal, with his easy charm and leisurely smile, is a natural fit for the guy any woman would consider themselves lucky to be with. As finance bros go, he's enlightened, self-deprecating, and self-aware enough to transcend the implications of that world. But Pascal, for all the twinkle in his eye, often plays relatively sexless characters — from the fatherly energy ofThe Last of Usto the ascetic qualities ofThe Mandalorian. Song wisely foregrounds that element of Pascal's star power, demonstrating how love, despite its low ranking in Lucy's qualities for a good match, is far more essential than she wants to admit. And, it must be said, for a movie that explores how we might distill elements of attractions and chemistry, it's a fairly sexless endeavor on the whole. Chris Evans, who has squandered much of his post-Marvel career reveling in roles ridden with douchebaggery, contrasts Pascal as an irresistible screw up, a golden retriever of a man who can't seem to reckon with the fact that sometimes love is not enough. He's wholesome and winsome, making it clear from his first entrance why Lucy once loved him. His chemistry with Johnson isn't raging, but warm and solid, the embers of a campfire that has been well-tended. Jose Perez/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images There's also a more dramatic thread running throughout the storytelling, acknowledging that for women, dating is not merely hard work, but also an inherently risky, if not outright dangerous, proposition. Because no matter how good a match someone appears to be on paper, the fear of sexual violence is never far from mind. Song weaves this into her meditation on marriage and love, and it's initially a poignant and effective undercurrent. But then it becomes a shoe-horned impetus for Lucy's own self-realization and personal growth, undercutting the power of her emotional and intellectual dilemma. Because what she realizes is this: love is essential because it doesn't come from someone's height, weight, or the size of their pocketbook. It comes from truly knowing a person. Want more movie news? Sign up forEntertainment Weekly's free newsletterto get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more. "I'm not asking for a miracle," says Lucy's client Sophie (Zoe Winters). "I just want to love someone. Someone who can't help but love me back." Materialistsdoesn't offer any easy answers despite delivering on its romantic premise — it acknowledges that happiness is sometimes a very bad financial decision, but that a happy life with a partner is also not something we can manufacture from numbers on an input form. Instead, it is something we must choose to be brave enough for. Because love isn't a formula, but something altogether more infuriating, complicated, confusing, intangible, and magical. Something that might actually be a bit of a miracle.Grade: B+ Read the original article onEntertainment Weekly
