Despite the mixed views and people saying it’s not worth it, I gave Materialists, directed by Celine Song and starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans, a go, so you don’t have to… or you just might want to. I’ll be honest. I thought it would be another ‘meet-cute,’ or some artsy romcom, the kind that tries to be deep but forgets to be fun. The kind we keep getting post-2020s that rarely hit the spot. I braced for aesthetics over substance, a love triangle dipped in millennial malaise and New York lighting. And here’s what the takeaway is.
While Materialists might not quite live up to the cast it bags (let’s be real – Pascal and Evans serve major eye candy and have been doing that since forever), it surprised me. Not with its plot twists, which are pretty linear, or with a grand romantic payoff, which is refreshingly muted – but with its willingness to ask uncomfortable questions. The kind we tend to bury in this day and age, dating apps, and ‘am I too picky?’ conversations with friends.
The movie is a talker. And what it’s talking about isn’t just love, it’s value. Self-worth, net worth, emotional capital, and the quiet cost of always optimizing your romantic life like a resume.
Love, But Make It a Business Deal
Lucy and Harry’s take on relationships is equal parts flirty and philosophical. Some of the best scenes in Materialists come early, before anything romantic even happens. Lucy (played by Dakota Johnson), a polished and quietly weary matchmaker, meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), a wealthy, charming man who seems like a walking checklist of “ideal partner” traits (if you like a man in finance, Harry’s the one who checks the boxes!). But instead of the usual banter, they launch into a conversation that immediately repositions romance into a financial framework.
They talk about love like economists talk about market behavior – demand, supply, equilibrium and all that. Lucy uses language like “value in the dating marketplace,” rattling off stats, trends, and superficial expectations with a kind of emotional detachment that feels all too familiar. She’s not being cynical, she’s being honest. And Harry? He doesn’t flinch. He leans in. He’s been bought and sold by this system too. Quite literally. He reveals a painful ‘investment’ he made to be more ‘dateable,’ one that speaks volumes about male insecurity in the age of image and algorithm.
These scenes are dialogue-heavy, but not in a “listen to us wax poetic” kind of way. It’s sharp. The chemistry simmers under clean, symmetrical two-shots and flat lighting that feels more boardroom than bedroom. You don’t even realize they’re falling into something – not love, not yet – but an alignment. They get each other’s calculations. There’s no sweeping music. No stolen glances. Just two adults comparing dating to venture capital, and realizing they’ve both become experts in risk management rather than intimacy.
Love Isn’t Always About the Climb
Lucy and John’s messy history still makes space for something real There’s something disarming about Lucy’s dynamic with John (played by my forever favorite, Chris Evans). It doesn’t have the gloss of her slow-burn flirtation with Harry, or the comfort of a life that comes pre-upgraded. But what it does have is emotional baggage – and not in a bad way. Their relationship isn’t tidy. It’s marked by arguments over money, disappointments, missed timings. But in all that mess, there’s something that feels truer. More lived-in.
John isn’t the kind of guy you’re supposed to choose when you’ve decided marriage is a business deal. He’s not rich, not stable, and bit of a mess. But he sees Lucy in a way that’s hard to dismiss. Their conversations aren’t about power couple goals or curated lifestyles. They’re about what survival has cost them. What happiness even means. They push each other to articulate what they expect from love – not in theory, but in practice, in reality.
What’s moving is that the film makes us believe, if only for a moment, that opposites might actually attract. That someone who doesn’t ‘fit the list’ might still understand you in ways that count. Lucy’s walls come down around John, not in some grand transformation arc, but in small, vulnerable ways. You start to wonder if loving someone who doesn’t offer a safety net is a reckless risk or the only version of intimacy that’s actually honest.
The Sophie Problem
A subplot that needed more time, more clarity or at the very least, more care. Sophie, Lucy’s client deserved more than a half-baked subplot. Her arc begins with promise: a woman seeking love through Lucy’s curated process, only to end up in a deeply unsettling situation. Sophie is assaulted by a man Lucy matched her with, and yet the film handles this turn with frustrating brevity. It’s brushed past rather than fully reckoned with. There was potential here – for the film to interrogate the limits and risks of algorithmic matchmaking, to explore consent, accountability, even the emotional toll on both client and matchmaker. Instead, Sophie’s story feels oddly placed and underdeveloped, introduced as a major beat and then dropped just as quickly.
With more screen time and intention, Sophie could’ve grounded the film in some much-needed realism. Her experience could’ve added a sharp, uncomfortable contrast to Lucy’s more calculated worldview. But as it stands, she’s less a fully realized character and more a narrative device – symbolic, yes, but not given the depth or resolution her storyline demands.
Let’s be honest. On posters, Instagram posts and all, Materialists looks amazing, but the press tour might’ve been more entertaining. Somewhere in between the Pinterest-y sets, the story itself struggles to fully land. It feels like the cast had more chemistry during interviews than in the actual film, Watching them laugh through panel questions or playfully dodge plot spoilers felt like the rom-com energy we didn’t quite get on screen. The movie itself made me hit the pause button, not because it was overwhelming… but because it was kind if underwhelming. Maybe it was just me? Who knows.
But despite that he film raises a sharper question: what happens when the aesthetics stop distracting you? When the fantasy gives way to something slower, quieter, and more emotionally jagged? Materialists is not trying to dazzle you with plot twists or pace. It’s not trying to entertain in the traditional sense. Instead, it lingers on insecurity, on longing, on the compromises people make to feel secure or chosen.
Whether that works for you depends on what you’re hoping to get out of it. If you’re looking for a conventional rom-com payoff, you’ll probably feel the drag. But if you’re open to a film that explores love like an unstable equation – full of shifts, emotional risk, and quiet recalibrations – this might hit. It’s not flawless. But neither is love. And that, I guess, is sort of the point of it all.
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