Two films into her feature film directorial career, Celine Song already has her signature sensibilities as a filmmaker – the languid camera movements, the horizontal tracking shots and perfectly framed conversations, the pregnant pauses and silences, New York City as a prominent character, and her view of life through a fundamentally cynical yet romantic lens (and an emotionally tangled love triangle). With her follow up to her sublime debut Past Lives, Song pitches her film on a more playful premise of in-person matchmaking, and the perils of 21st century dating.
Dakota Johnson plays the lead role of Lucy, a NYC matchmaker who curates dates and mates in the overwhelming swipe-based dating world. She meets and starts dating the dashing and wealthy “unicorn” Harry (Pedro Pascal), but also reconnects with her former beau John (Chris Evans), a still struggling actor who picks up catering shifts to make ends meet. Song, who had previously worked as a matchmaker in her real life, continues to draw from her real-life experiences and emphasizes the strong sense of place that her stories and characters have, aided by a great soundtrack and a unique drink order.
The structure and synopsis may seem like a rom-com, but it is decidedly not, even if the trailer might have suggested otherwise. Materialists is nevertheless acutely aware of and pays tribute to many of the classic romance films and rom coms – Song seems to love taking the archetypal Jane Austen esque themes and tropes and putting them into wholly modern and original stories. She weaves together the idiosyncracies and awkwardness (and even dangers) of dating laid bare by the lens of a middleman. As confident as we might have thought our three impossibly beautiful main characters would be, they are eaten up by the same insecurities and traumas and imperfections as all of us see in ourselves and in our partners.
As expected, Song is thoughtful and realistic about the transactional nature of every relationship. Is love just math, or is it something more essential and more simple than that, something that is as pure an instinct for us as it was for our cavemen predecessors? There are other trite aphorisms here (such as “you’re not ugly, you just don’t have money”, or “marriage is a business deal and always has been since the very first time two people got married. If the deal isn’t good, you can walk away”) and others that might strike a little deeper: “who our partner is, determines our whole life, and how we live.” Lucy’s sales pitch is essentially the stakes of modern dating.
Dakota Johnson continues her trend as one of the more intriguing and divisive movie stars. Personally, I think the criticism of her performance here misses the point. Her stilted line deliveries and affectations are intentional and spot on for what was needed. The film centers on her choices past and present, not only in love but her fundamental life philosophies and priorities, and from the very opening scene we see Lucy putting on a face and focusing on the external. In that sense, Johnson is an inspired casting choice, and her own ability to choose and produce interesting projects and work with talented directors should be applauded as a successful sort of career matchmaking in its own right. Harry and John, on the other hand, while charismatic as all hell, aren’t fully fleshed out characters but they aren’t supposed to be – they are avatars of Lucy’s sliding doors love life and her choices and values that she must decide upon.
So, is love nothing more than a math equation? The ultimate answer to that question can’t fully be answered on paper (or on film), but we can conclude that love is worth the struggle of exploring the limitations of people as profiles.
Now playing in theatres.
