How many inches do you require in order to date a man? Is that number non-negotiable? But what if he had a good personality? Oh, that doesn’t matter, you say. Inches are non-negotiable. After all, needing a personality wasn’t even on the list of criteria.
If you thought the inches were in reference to genitalia (wink wink), well that’s part of the joke that Materialists hammers over and over. The non-negotiable inch requirements are actually in reference to a man’s height (gotcha!). Apparently, the female clientele of the high-end New York City matchmaker service Adore are very particular in that they absolutely do not want a short man. He must be tall (and men always lie and add a couple inches to their height, har har), have an income of $500K+, be on the good-looking side, etc. As for men’s perspective, the ideal women are simply required to be in their 20s (non-negotiable), thin (non-negotiable), and hot (non-negotiable), otherwise they are inherently scary/pushy/old/fat by default.
Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a successful matchmaker for Adore. Just having achieved her 9th match that has led to wedding bells, she is a star player in the office, despite being single herself. Is she too picky in her personal life? Well, it would be hard not to be considering the dearth of “quality” men in New York. At the 9th wedding, she encounters the rare “unicorn”: an attractive single man named Henry, late-40s, in business, making $500K a year, living in a $12 million dollar apartment, who is actually a nice guy. Of course he is played by the internet’s favorite daddy/dreamboat Pedro Pascal, getting to (finally) be swoon-worthy onscreen. Lucy tries to recruit him as a client, but he’s actually interested in her. Well, she’s not above grabbing that unicorn by the horn while she can.
But as this is a rom-com, things can’t be quite so simple. Her ex John (dreamboat Chris Evans), a constantly broke actor who works as a catering waiter, runs into her at the same wedding. There are obviously still sparks, but she kicked him to the curb awhile back as she was tired of their nickel-and-diming life; tired of being poor in a horrifically expensive city where dreams are made or broken. Though John may not be able to take Lucy to an expensive restaurant and smoothly pay for the check without glancing at the total, well, he and Lucy obviously still have a connection… still have sparks….
One thing I kept thinking about Materialists is that you could swap out Dakota for J-Lo, and the men for more generic C-list handsome actors (one generically good-looking, the other a little rugged) and you’d have basically any other pleasantly forgettable rom-com that you might watch on a plane. I kept thinking that this film MUST be better than those, because it was written and directed by the indie darling Celine Song, who’s last (and first) film Past Lives (2023) won so much acclaim. Was I missing something?
There are a few moments where the screenplay seems to rise above the typical, but just a little. Both Pedro and Chris each get a moment to show some vulnerability, to give their characters something beyond the superficial. Or maybe it was just because Chris Evans is so good at being a hurt, lovelorn puppy dog that I just wanted to scream for Dakota to choose him, even if it was clear that they’d probably end up miserable and fighting again.
Materialists just felt cynical and depressing to me. Dating in New York sounds awful. Dating in the age of algorithms and checkboxes and math and perceived partner-value sounds awful. But this was such an intriguing dream cast in my book. Dating any of the three real-life actors in Materialists sounds delightful, at least in a US magazine’s “Stars! They’re Just Like Us!” kind of way. Their characters, though? The more I squinted my eyes at this film afterwards, the more I didn’t care for any of them.
