'Materialists' and the High Cost of Romance
Celine Song's new movie skillfully explores modern sensibilities in a millennia-old economic arrangement.
Why do we seek marriage? Is it an attempt to create financial stability with another person? Why do we seek love? Is it to ward off the spectre of loneliness? For all the warm fuzzies surrounding emotional attachment, aren’t we also trying to overlook a transactional subtext in our relationships? In her new movie Materialists, writer-director Celine Song explores how our consumer-minded existence is the latest evolution of romance’s economic demands, but only serves to become a defensive mechanism against the emotional vulnerabilities that true intimacy requires. It’s fine to be aware of how much money matters in a long-term relationship, but knowing that fact won’t heal your heart or make you happy.
Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is a matchmaker who thinks she has romantic relationships all figured out. For her, it’s a business arrangement, and the purpose is to see how two sides set a wishlist for a partner and then bring them together via compromise. Her approach to romance would be just as well suited to mergers and acquisitions. She inadvertently catches the attention of Harry (Pedro Pascal), a “unicorn” whose wealth, charm, and looks make him the ideal candidate for any potential client. More importantly, Lucy and Harry have the same kind of criteria-based approach to romance, which puts them in sync. However, Lucy’s outlook on life hits a snag when she crosses paths with her old flame John (Chris Evans), whose financial fortunes haven’t changed since they last dated, but offers her the chance at love that doesn’t neatly fit into her worldview.
Song never pretends that the conflict between love and security is anything new. She makes the notion overt by opening the movie with a scene of two primitive ancestors in a courtship ritual. The caveman brings the cavewoman some tools and some flowers, and the question becomes, “Are these items an expression of love or an expression of security?” More importantly for Lucy’s job, what does it mean when we say we “value” another person? What metrics are we using in trying to balance the pragmatism of security against the idealism of love?
Thankfully, none of this plays as pedantic since Song is such a talented filmmaker. The dialogue crackles, the performances are outstanding, and she knows how to contrast the positions of John and Harry without resorting to broad caricature or obvious dichotomies. The initial framing may be “love without money vs. money without love,” but because Song always places us in Lucy’s perspective, we get a terrific visual representation of what these worlds offer. Lucy’s scenes with Harry usually have the feeling of a business meeting. They’re clean, carefully composed two-shots, and a dinner scene where Lucy tries to explain that Harry could do much better than her skillfully balances the emotional honesty of her confession with the stability of their relationship. No one can get hurt here because it’s nothing personal, only business.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Commentary Track to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.