Cover Materialists, directed by Celine Song, is an incisive critique of modern romance (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
Materialists, directed by Celine Song, is an incisive critique of modern romance (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
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Celine Song’s ‘Materialists’ dissects modern dating through class, value and love as an investment
With Materialists, director and writer Celine Song proves she has no interest in coasting on the success of her Oscar-nominated 2023 film Past Lives. Instead, she returns with a film sharper, colder and confronting—an examination of romance as transaction, attraction as capital and dating as a marketplace. Avoiding the sophomore slump entirely, Song delivers a layered and rigorous drama that uses the framework of a love triangle to critique the very logic behind how we approach intimacy in the modern age.
Set in New York City–rendered here with the same emotional precision and wistfulness that Song previously gave to her first film—Materialists centres on Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a former actor-turned-successful matchmaker who speaks about love the way others talk about stock portfolios. “She’s very good at the math of dating,” Song has said.
That math plays out explicitly on screen, particularly in Lucy’s calculated interactions with two very different men: Harry (Pedro Pascal), a rich, emotionally available “unicorn” who has optimised himself to perfection; and her ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans), a struggling 37 year old stage actor living with roommates, who represents something rawer, more instinctual and perhaps more real.
More from Tatler: 11 films with love triangles to get you ready for ‘Materialists’
Above Chris Evans pictured with ‘Materialists’ director, writer and producer Celine Song (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
Chris Evans pictured with ‘Materialists’ director, writer and producer Celine Song (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
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While Song’s reference points for the film included Regency romances like Pride and Prejudice, the world she builds is far from antiquated. If anything, it sharpens the same themes those stories explored: class, value and the illusion of romantic compatibility. Lucy, wise to the game, understands what her clients want—even when they don’t. She’s adept at delivering fantasies, even as she remains emotionally removed from the very ideals she helps others chase.
What’s most striking is how the film weaponises language. Song’s dialogue is dense with the vocabulary of business, markets, risk and return. In one scene, Lucy and Harry speak in exchanges that wouldn’t feel out of place in corporate dramas like Succession or Industry. But underneath the talk of value and assets is a sense of dehumanisation. In early June, A24 even staged a marketing stunt with a 30-minute takeover of the New York Stock Exchange, wherein the studio invited users to input their personal and physical attributes and projected these details in real time.
Above Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans in a scene from ‘Materialists’ (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
Above Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in a scene from ‘Materialists’ (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans in a scene from ‘Materialists’ (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
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In the Materialists universe, Dating is less about connection than optimisation. It is self-improvement turned into a corporate strategy. Song doesn’t condemn it outright; instead, she lays it bare, letting the implications speak for themselves. It makes the audience realise that maybe, the marriage plot of Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy—a handful of prized cows and a generous dowry—never totally left in the advent of sexual freedom. Instead, replaced with something sterile yet, in a way, indirect.
The film’s tension builds toward a disturbing turn, one that underscores Song’s assertion that the objectification baked into modern dating doesn’t come without consequences. Beneath the polished surface, Materialists reveals something rough and familiar: the pressure to become the most valuable version of oneself. “You’re not an asset—you’re a person,” the film suggests. But in a world where value is quantified in income, height or charm, that idea is harder to internalise than it should be.
Despite moments of wit and warmth, this is no feel-good romance. It’s a film about performance and the personas we put on to survive dating in an age of metrics. Still, it avoids total cynicism. Johnson brings a steely charisma to Lucy, allowing vulnerability to surface, especially in her scenes with John. In those moments, all the spreadsheets and scorecards fall away. What’s left is messy, unresolved and human.
Above Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in a scene from ‘Materialists’ (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
Above Dakota Johnson in a scene from ‘Materialists’ (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in a scene from ‘Materialists’ (Photo: Columbia Pictures)
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It would be easy to reduce Materialists to a Twilight-esque battle of opposites—Team Harry versus Team John—but that would be missing the point. Song isn’t staging a love triangle. She’s staging a quiet war over what kind of future Lucy wants. The decision she faces isn’t between two men. It’s between two philosophies: one rooted in control, security and surface perfection; the other in the inexplicable pull of history and feeling.
Materialists doesn’t offer easy answers, and that’s precisely what makes it so compelling. Celine Song has crafted a romance that dares to take itself seriously, indulging in the right amount of sentimentality to make you swoon. In the very end, it leaves you questioning the very systems we’ve come to accept as normal in the pursuit of modern love.
Materialists opens in Philippine cinemas on August 6.
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About
Julianna has been interested in leading a literary life since she first read Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess at eight. Before working with Tatler, she was an archive intern at The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York. She is a textbook Pisces who devotes most of her spare time to her crochet projects, watching classic films, and going through her never-ending pile of unread books. She studied creative writing, global literature and art history at Sarah Lawrence College, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2022. Toni Morrison, Nora Ephron, Clarice Lispector and Jia Tolentino are among her all-time favourite writers.
Work
Julianna writes about fashion, beauty, sustainability, and the arts. She is always keen on conducting interviews with talented women who are changing the game in their respective fields.
For event invites and story leads, hit her up at julianna.cabili@tatlerasia.com
