Overview
- Materialists, Celine Song’s sophomore feature, follows Lucy, a Manhattan matchmaker played by Dakota Johnson, as she navigates a choice between wealthy client Harry (Pedro Pascal) and ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans).
- Reviewers uniformly praise Shabier Kirchner’s cinematography and the film’s lush, honeyed visuals that cast Manhattan’s elite dating scene in a golden glow.
- Many critics commend the film’s sharp critique of dating commodification and its candid dialogue on financial and superficial criteria in modern relationships.
- Some reviewers criticize the film’s uneven tone, citing awkward chemistry among the leads and an abrupt sexual assault subplot that disrupts narrative momentum.
- Song’s own mid-2010s experience as a New York matchmaker underpins the film’s frank exploration of matchmaking as a transactional business.