11/12 ForReel Score | 4.5/5 Stars

Compared to the endless treasure trove of ‘90s and ‘00s classic films to choose from, the past fifteen years or so have been quite dry in the mid-budget romance department. We’re not getting as many Love, Actually-s or Sleepless in Seattle-s as we used to, something that writer/director Celine Song has caught wind of. Her debut tearjerker, Past Lives, captured a Linklater-esque intimacy that touched the hearts of hopeless romantics everywhere and earned her a Best Original Screenplay nomination at the 2024 Oscars, making her one of the de facto indie filmmakers to watch in the past couple of years. Almost two years later, Song returns with her sophomore feature, Materialists, feeding the jaded cinemagoers who ask, “Why don’t they make movies like these anymore?”

Except for the Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell romcom, Anyone But You, and the Jennifer Lawrence star vehicle, No Hard Feelings, the 2020s have been a relatively dire decade for theatrically released romcoms. 2024 lost out big on the steamy Richard Linklater crime comedy, Hit Man, which Netflix only gave a very limited release in a handful of markets before quickly landing on the streaming platform. One could argue that Oscar darlings like Poor Things and Anora do count as romantic comedies, but it’s hard to compare those films to the likes of Notting Hill or 10 Things I Hate About You. Thanks to Celine Song, Materialists hearkens to that era of romcoms and scratches an itch that has gone unscratched for far too long.

Materialists has all the signature trademarks of all the best romcoms: a beautiful leading cast, an excellent screenplay, and it takes place in New York City. Pivoting from the beaten-to-death superhero megaflop Madame Web, Dakota Johnson is the best she’s ever been as Lucy, with Song effortlessly working with Johnson’s strengths to create a believably complicated protagonist that fits the quasi-heightened world these characters live in. Pedro Pascal is utilized immaculately as the “hot rich guy” archetype, Harry, and he’s so good here that it makes me feel like he’s being misused everywhere else. I don’t think he’s meant to be this gruff, macho figure like in Gladiator II or The Last of Us, because he fits into these more emotionally subdued roles instead.

Between a trio of A-list talent whose fees could’ve cost half the film’s budget, the runaway performer in Materialists is far and away Chris Evans as John, who delivers his best work since 2019’s Knives Out. A struggling actor and waiter who lives paycheck to paycheck with two roommates he despises, John is the key to unlocking what Song has to say about how superficial social values affect our selection of romantic partners. He perpetually exists in contrast to Harry and Lucy’s outrageously lavish lifestyles, and it’s what makes him integral to Lucy’s realization of what truly matters in life. Materialists is the usual “it’s what’s inside that counts” story with a smart twist, and it doesn’t hurt that the players are drop-dead gorgeous on the outside, too.

It’s clear that the matchmaking service Lucy works for, Adore, is a stand-in for all of the dating apps and services that plague our contemporary dating landscape, and it makes for excellent satire as to how we get hung up on numbers when it comes to people. Arbitrary factors like height, weight, and bank accounts didn’t matter in caveman times when the first neanderthals got together, so why should they matter so much to us? Celine Song is shaking the very foundations that we’ve built love on, between dowries in the Austenian days or overelaborate weddings in our present, and how unnecessary everything else is as long as love exists. It may be a bit saccharine, but the message comes across so sweetly that I can’t bring myself to feel cynical about it.

Song’s screenplay is much funnier than I expected it to be from the person whose prior film tore my heart out of my chest, and a good chuckle escaped me every five minutes or so. It’s whip-smart and naturalistic when it wants to be, and with the more stilted deliveries correlating to Song’s thesis on algorithmic “matches” between people not always creating the best chemistry. Emotions (particularly love) don’t often coincide with numerical logic, and Song is much more interested in the spontaneity of romance rather than simply putting one and one together and calling it a day. It’s better to meet somebody organically than to have a math equation do it for you, and it’s better to mesh with somebody organically than to base it all on predetermined “compatibility”.

Part of what makes Materialists so evocative of turn-of-the-century romcoms is its purposeful attention to detail to the point of pastiche, as it feels nostalgic while being set in the present day. Were it not for references to OnlyFans and absurd New York City rent prices, the film might as well take place in the early 2000s. It’s akin to When Harry Met Sally… and Sex in the City, with a soundtrack that people will have saved on Spotify almost immediately (I eagerly await the release of the new Japanese Breakfast song for this film’s soundtrack). To a person who was raised on romcoms, Materialists checks all of the aesthetic boxes without feeling derivative of its predecessors.

It’s clear that, since Past Lives, Celine Song has been honing her abilities as a filmmaker and writer, with Materialists being a big step for the director. Materialists feels a lot more cinematic than the stage-play-isms of Past Lives, and it shows that Song has fully come into her own as a real-deal director. Past Lives was a transitional point between Song’s experience as a playwright and her ambitions to become a film director, whereas those ambitions now feel fully realized. She still has those “indie filmmaker” flourishes thanks to cinematographer Shabier Kirchner’s cozy 35mm photography, but it’s safe to say that Celine Song has officially gone Hollywood. Materialists may be too mainstream to earn Oscar buzz like Past Lives did, but it’s sure to have a much broader audience thanks to its sheer star power.

Paying homage to the romcom titans while finding her own distinct voice as a director, Celine Song is back with another mesmerizingly charming film about people who are looking for love. Palpably romantic with wordless gazes and long pauses, Materialists is the type of romance film that’ll make you want to buy somebody flowers and tell them how much you love them. We rarely get a romcom of this stature these days, and I sincerely hope this subgenre can make a larger comeback in the future. Or, maybe the comeback is now, and Celine Song is the harbinger of an encroaching romcom resurgance. Either way, Materialists is a lovely, smart, well-written, wonderfully acted romcom that’ll single-handedly rule date nights across the world for the next two months or so.

Movie Review: "Materialists" Revives Classic Rom-Com Greatness