“Dating is a risk” and “love is a negotiation,” says Lucy (Dakota Johnson) in Celine Song’s new film Materialists. The film captures the ironic reality of how dating in the age of apps has evolved into a game not of what you can buy, but who you can be seen with. Song subtly asks the audience what happens when romance itself becomes a transaction driven by image, ambition, and desire.
The Plot: Transactional Love
Set in New York, Materialists follows Lucy, a high-end matchmaker who curates romantic partners for the wealthy elite. Lucy’s success is measured into a set of criteria’s ensuring her clients receive a detailed partner score based upon height, income and aesthetic. Reducing love to a strict set of metrics. However, Lucy rekindles her relationship with ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans) while being courted by her wealthy client Harry (Pedro Pascal), the reality and emotional costs of her matchmaking career begin to show.
The story unfolds as a half love triangle and half critique of modern dating culture. It’s a film that sparkles with surface glamour but constantly asks, what’s the price beneath the polish? Do we sacrifice genuine connection for financial stability.
For more background, see the film’s Wikipedia page or ABC’s review.
What Works: Sharp, Stylish, and Surprisingly Sincere
Materialists is a sophisticated reflection on how finical gain can infiltrate our emotions. Lucy’s “clients” talk about love as though it were an investment portfolio including the risks, returns, and long-term projections. Song handles this satire with intelligence crafting moments that feel uncomfortably real. Dakota Johnson as “Lucy” gives one of her strongest performances yet. Showing a polished yet vulnerable, capable yet quietly exhausted woman. Rolling Stone Australia praised Johnson’s skills noting how she avoids making Lucy a villain even as she profits from others loneliness.
One of the film’s greatest strengths lies in the non-traditional chemistry between its leads. Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal deliver performances that feel intentionally restrained building their emotional tension that is often simmering beneath the surface rather than bursting into romance. The lack of overt passion mirrors the film’s commentary on how modern relationships can feel calculated, where connection and control blur.
What Doesn’t Work: The Price of Perfection
For all its polish, Materialists occasionally feels like its own critique, beautiful but emotionally remote. The first half builds sharp social satire, but the tone shifts in the third act toward conventional romance. The tension between satire and sincerity doesn’t always balance.
Some viewers have also noted a lack of chemistry between Lucy and her love interests. As one reviewer for the Independent observed, “You admire them, but you don’t quite believe them.” The characters orbit each other elegantly however sparks rarely fly. Creating a dry foundation for the plot to build.
Additionally, the more complex subplot involving one of Lucy’s matchmaking clients hints at darker issues of class and power and sexual harassment, yet it’s left under-developed and doesn’t hint towards any support networks or options available for young women. A missed opportunity to deepen the film and provide spotlight to prevalent issue. The result is a film that feels intellectually rich but somewhat hollow in the heart.
Themes: Class and Connection
Materialists examines how love, class, and value intertwine. Lucy’s job monetises affection, turning human connection into a luxury product. It’s not just about finding “the one” but finding “the one with the right bank account”. Selling the prospect of love, tied up in a bow of superficial ideals.
Through this, Song explores the commodification of love a theme that resonates in a time of dating apps and “height filters”. As Lucy says, “People pay for love because they don’t have time to find it”. The film also probes class disparity: Harry (Pedro Pascal) represents the elite world Lucy aspires to, while John reminds her of the emotional, unprofitable side of love she left behind. The contrast and tale of prince and the pauper continues into the modern age.
Harper’s Bazaar Australia described the film as “a mirror for our times — seductive, cynical, and a little bit sad”. That balance of allure and emptiness is what makes Materialists both fascinating and frustrating.
Final Verdict
Celine Song’s Materialists is ambitious, intelligent, and cinematically stunning, a glossy critique of the emotional marketplace that is modern dating. It asks all the right questions about how we measure intimacy but doesn’t always deliver the emotional answers we crave. It’s a film worth watching for its ideas and performances alone. Johnson’s portrayal of Lucy lingers long after the credits, embodying a generation caught between emotional desire and economic survival.
Materialists, is all about the fine print.
Simone L 
Annisa 
Brooke