MATERIALISTS Review: A Somewhat Soulless Sophomore Effort

Materialists, Celine Song’s highly anticipated follow up to her Oscar-nominated and critically acclaimed debut feature, Past Lives, does not fulfill the artistic promise of her auspicious beginning. In both films, Song is dissecting the romance genre, weaving in touches of comedy and drama to reinvigorate what can often be a tired mish-mash of cliches. In this latest effort, the writer/director’s mix of tropes and conventions might have looked good on paper, but does not come alive on screen.

Past Lives had a resounding emotional depth, with tonal intricacies and a profound resonance that is simply missing from her latest. The stylistic dexterity in her debut allowed her to sidestep some of the tired formulas that can sink the best romantic ideas. Yet, in Materialists, the director is so busy with her messaging that she forgets to give her film any soul. More importantly, she botches a key dramatic twist that has no business being there in the first place.

The love triangle at the heart of this narrative is a familiar launching pad for her ruminations on true love. Dakota Johnson stars as Lucy, a professional matchmaker at the high-end agency, Adore, in New York City. She loves her job and proudly recites the company’s mantra (look for someone who is good-looking, financially successful, and who comes from the right family background) to lure prospective clients to the agency. She seems amused by her clients’ laundry lists of often unrealistic qualities that objectify each other. The entire supposedly serious process of finding a life partner is transformed into an exercise in commodification.

Impressed by one of her hypnotic pitches to a group of women at a lavish wedding reception, the handsome brother of the groom, a suave and successful financier, Harry (Pedro Pascal) is instantly spellbound. The thing is, he wants her, not her services. Of course, she’s interested: he’s “perfect” and “a unicorn” as she says and checks all the right boxes, according to the criteria of her matchmaking service. Add to this the chance reunion between her and her dishevelled struggling actor ex, John (Chris Evans), who’s working that night as a cater-waiter and the scene is set for some pretty typical rom com fun.

Only this one is not so typical, and not in a good way. While Past Lives added depth to the subgenre by complicating the narrative with an intricate exploration around notions of destiny, the narrative trajectory here is pretty straightforward, and basically predictable. Of course, she dates Harry and fights her feelings for John (sort of, there are only really hints to that effect). In flashback, she recalls a particularly memorable anniversary that was ruined because he didn’t want to pay a fortune to park his car for what was already an expensive celebratory meal. Meanwhile, there’s an extended sequence that follows in which Harry takes her to all the finest restaurants in the city.

Moments like these can be funny but, in this film, with the characters so ill-defined, Song really can’t squeeze all the humour out of them. One gets the sense that these people are types, mere pawns in her game. The actors don’t stand a chance in this context. Evans is the only one that manages anything that hints at loveable but that’s only because his character is coded as the imperfect one (i.e. relatable to the audience).

While a lot was conveyed visually in Past Lives, and even in the silences, Song leans heavily on the script in Materialists. It’s the main element that drives this film forward. Past Lives had a stylistic nuance where the camera flowed through complicated situations and feelings. The longing between the characters was palpable and even painful to experience. In essence she and her actors created a haunting tone poem. Here there is a somewhat interesting message about how shallow our social media-based society has become and how the consequences affect people. But it’s nothing new and becomes tiresome rather quickly.

It’s one thing to have Lucy repeat things ad nauseum, like the company mantra about what makes a successful match and how people fit together because they check each others’ boxes, it’s another to have the actors parrot and echo these lines over and over again. The humour gets lost here in the repetition and the actors are not given any real qualities to bring to life. They are like walking lists of assets or handicaps – the same as the criteria that do or do not make for a supposedly good match according to the dating market.

In Materialists, Song does play with rom-com conventions, but she traps her own efforts in the genre’s very conventions. It’s a pretty standard love story about deciding who is right for you, as in choosing between your head and your heart. But when she throws in a serious plot twist to set the conventional happy ending in motion, the film becomes a jarring mix of the comedic and the dramatic. She upends the film tonally in a way that is insulting: sexual assault is not a fitting plot device in a film that is dancing along the margins of the rom-com genre.

Materialists is a social commentary about the difficulties of finding love in the modern era and about the shallow pits to which some have sunk. Dating apps with their faultless profiles have been around for a long time now and with social media presenting everyone’s ideal selves, Celine Song investigates how difficult it can be to wade through all of that superficiality to something that is real. In Past Lives, she dissected the genre, here she communicates something more familiar: looking for love in this modern age is becoming increasingly difficult, especially when you have unrealistic expectations. People can be shallow – but we already knew that, right?

The film opens Friday, June 13, via A24 Films in the US and VVS Films in Canada. Visit the official sites for more information.