Materialists (2025)
This slight, negligible romantic drama, tailored for film festival culture vultures, came and went within a few weeks.
Nobody missed anything.......of that we can assure you, having seen it.
Written and directed by Celine Song ("Past Lives"), it's a static, verbose slog tracking the romantic ups and downs of professional matchmaker Lucy (Dakota Johnson). She's the star employee of Adore, a posh outfit that prizes itself on its number of perfected calibrated pairings that end up in marriages.
But clouds form on Lucy's sunny, well paid life. She's unable to find a suitable match for herself; she's happily comfortable with her expensive New York lifestyle, leading to her breakup with John (Chris Evans) who's still a struggling impoverished actor eking out a living as a caterer's waiter (As a former actress Lucy and John used to struggle together.....)
At the wedding of one of her clients, she runs into John who's there as a server, but also encounters the smoothly charming and wealthy brother of the groom Harry (Pedro Pascal).....and sparks are struck with Harry and maybe re-ignited with John.
And hence, Lucy's dilemma : What's girl to do when faced with this singularly different choice of men agog for her? Harry's her perfect match-up, given his station and her own attraction to material things. But then there's earnest, heart-on-his-sleeve John, who can offer her little but his eternal love and affection.
Old school Hollywood used to tell this story countless times with sparkling dialogue and live wire performances from their leading man and ladies. Celine Song chooses to overthink and overwrite every single scene in the film, slowing the story down to a muddled crawl. After awhile, film's three characters sound like they're providing DVD commentary on what they're doing instead of acting out the story.
It's bad enough that Song slows her movie down to a crawl, but what really puts the nail in the coffin is the monotone performance of Dakota Johnson.
Pascal and Evans have charm and charisma to spare, while Johnson's very limited range is painful to behold and she sucks the life out of the film playing a role clearly constructed for someone with acting chops.....like a Florence Pugh or Alicia Vikander. (An actual skilled performance might have at least given this stillborn movie something close to pulse.....)
We'll admit Celine Song has serious essential points to make here.....about how the pursuit of moneyed success fuels today's modern relationships, as opposed to the simple primal quest for pure love. But she makes her film a lifeless, dry academic lecture.....more likely to put us to sleep than engage us with the story.
A waste of time nothingburger whose aspirations to high art fall flat. And Johnson's in desperate need of an acting coach.
Zero stars (0).
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