Celine Song, Academy Award nominated director of Past Lives, made New York City the backdrop to the complexities of human relationships and love in A24’s Materialists. We loved this film for making us think about how simple relationships can be if we’re in them for the right reasons. And we’re saying it as the highest praise and compliment to her writing and cinematographer Shabier Kirchner’s talent.
The aesthetics of large buildings, Cental Park, and nights spent on balcony fire escapes wasn’t what pulled us into the story. Although stunning in technical and camera work, the beauty of the film ultimately lies in the reunion of exes Lucy (Dakota Johnson) and John (Chris Evans). Who reunite and try fighting the undeniable pull and undying love toward each other. They end up happily together, sorry to say Pedro Pascal fans, but Harry never stood a chance. And the magic in Song’s work, both in Past Lives and Materialists, is in what she tells us about finding and falling in love.
Nowadays, being with someone based on what value and worth they give you is more important than how they make you feel. And Song isn’t afraid to point this out and remind us that being madly in love should be what brings people together. Although it’s a classic romance trope to explore, Song does it with an honesty that left our minds whirling in circles when we left the theater.
Such provoking ideas makes the journey of connecting with Lucy as the main character a special one. We watched her struggle to fall back in love with someone who adores the ugly side of her but won’t elevate her in life. And Song made us think about what it means to love someone who can’t offer you anything but their heart. This is the message of Materialists, and Song made audiences aware of this fight of head versus heart in today’s world.
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The Lessons We Learned
The struggles and triumphs of dating may be a universal experience for everyone but finding your forever person is hard. Song is unique in highlighting various economic struggles that women face that can hinder their modern relationships. She also questioned how a person’s value ties to physical traits, personality, monetary value and upbringing, in relationships. For Lucy, highly decorated and successful matchmaker, following this equation of success built on materialistic thinking about relationships was easy. We can see why as she checked off boxes detailing a person’s best qualities and offers are in a relationship for a living.
We’d admit it’s an logical ideology about relationships. But when is love ever logical? We can’t control who we love. Song held this uncomfortable conversation up to our faces and made us look at how harmful prioritizing physical value over connection is. Unconditional love should be everyone’s first priority in finding lasting relationships. Therefore, showing Lucy battle with overcoming expectations about what actually makes a successful relationship was something we applauded. Materialists felt fresh for showcasing this internal struggle within people in a genre that needs reviving.
When giving up control in who you meet by trusting another person’s judgement, you can sometimes meet the wrong people. The type of people who don’t value or respect women as individual people rather than property or objects. Within that Song tackled a real issue of women experiencing sexual assault in Materialists. And we hadn’t seen it coming. But this secondary storyline was handled with both delicacy and power by Zoe Winters, who played Sophie, one of Lucy’s clients who had a hopeful outlook on love until a failed date that ended in disaster.
Zoe Winters as Sophie was Unexpected But Brilliant
Sophie had been looking for months for a perfect match to meet all of her simple qualifications in a man. When Lucy believed she had found the one, she was wrong. Her checklists had failed. It turned out that he had actually been an awful man who assaulted Sophie. And we’d like to applaud Zoe Winters because her monologues when confronted and eventually comforted by Lucy felt believable and heart-achingly real. People can appear different on paper or social media than in real life. That’s the unknown scary part about modern dating.
Sophie was the most impactful story and character of the film for us. Her pessimism about love and fear of dying alone is something we’ve all felt at one point in life. She was the character we wanted to hug and comfort the most out of anyone in the film. And we found ourselves encouraging her through the screen to never give up on love. It’s a testament to Song’s character writing because Sophie isn’t real. But women like her are real. Which is why Song’s films hit so close to him for us as viewers.
Song knows how to display hard truths about love, intention, and longing. While simultaneously telling us that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. Lucy was right all along; onward and upward.
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Pedro Pascal’s Harry Deserves Love Too
Lucy and Harry were not meant to be forever. Their break-up scene allowed Pedro Pascal, one of Hollywood’s most recognizable faces at the moment, to shine. We fell for his portrayal of Harry because he wasn’t one-dimensional in the rich man gets the girl trope. His character wasn’t fully fleshed out either, but his fears about love felt genuine because of Pascal’s softness.
Harry and Lucy’s first meeting at his brother’s wedding felt like it could’ve been love at first sight between two extroverted and stunning people. But it wasn’t. If we’re honest, their dates felt like both business transactions and clashing egos rather than romantic. Harry believed he could offer Lucy the life and satisfaction of being the match that she thought she wanted. It’s there where we felt Pascal’s ease of charm and exuding warmth. Because he was honest in saying he’d give Lucy anything she wanted. Who wouldn’t want a man who could promise you the world?
Song is someone we could trust in delivering on moments of vulnerability in her character interactions that feel real. And she did just that with Harry and Lucy’s scenes together. Harry being afraid to be vulnerable and truly fall in love was his obstacle in this film. And he had deep insecurities about his looks that made him want someone who loves and respects his money rather than who he is. Harry and Lucy didn’t want to get to know each other. So, love was never on the table for them. And their mutual breakup was one we saw coming from a mile away.
Meeting Expectations as Lucy
Dakota Johnson met our expectations as insecure yet powerful matchmaker Lucy Mason. While believing this, we think she was the weakest part of the movie. However, her quirks and expression elevated Lucy’s sometimes boring personality. Her awkwardness made sense mostly because Lucy’s insecure and avoidant. Johnson, alongside the leading men who made us feel things with words and gestures, used her eyes to pull audiences into the moments that mattered.
Her moment to shine was in the ending of Materialists. More specifically, the love confession scene between Lucy and John at the wedding they crashed in Upstate New York. Song is a director that knows how to utilize the quiet pauses between earth-shaking confessions of feelings. It’s as if cameras aren’t there and these are just two people talking about things that matter to them. And makes us feel like we’re wrong in intruding on a private moment between a “real” couple.
The focus on the faces of both Lucy and John as their hopes and dreams for reconciliation were crushed by bringing up their past was tough to watch. Johnson’s eyes were wide and hurt and Evans looked defeated and torn apart. It was a scene that really stuck with us because we rarely see two rom-com actors who bounce off each other so well nowadays.
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Chris Evans Was the Heart of This Movie
We believe Chris Evans as struggling actor John is his best role yet. Carefully crafted under Song’s touch, his character connected with us the most. He represented the dreamers of life who feel stuck and left behind. If you were to ask us, he was the real hopeful romantic in Materialists. And we love a man who yearns and pines for a woman they want.
John wanted to step into Lucy’s mess and sit beside her when she learned about Sophie’s attack. When the line between friends and lovers became blurry, he was the first to ask her if she wanted a second chance with him. John may have felt unaccomplished in life but was emotionally intelligent and present. The one thing he knew for certain about himself was how much he loved Lucy. We applaud Song’s writing of John because a good and honest man in a romance film is always something worth celebrating. And we loved the fact that he wasn’t unafraid of his feelings for her and wore them on his sleeve.
John had his own charm when doing the gentleman thing in brushing Lucy’s requests to be alone while she was with another man. He knew when to step aside and when to fight for her. And we got emotional when he went with Lucy to protect Sophie from her attacker and slept on her apartment steps to make sure both women were okay. Ultimately, tt felt like the easiest thing to root for him along the way to get his girl back.
Last Thoughts
Love is a human emotion we’re all conditioned to feel from birth but the one feeling that we feel like we have to earn and fight for once we get older. We loved Materialists for being layered in meaning and message with a happy ending we could swoon about for years to come.
Celine Song was honest in Materialists in telling audiences that relationships don’t need to be complicated. Love just has to be alive and present. And with the right person, it’ll feel as easy as breathing and never like you’re doing math.
A24‘s Materialists is now showing in theaters.
