Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in Materialists (2025)
I am in what seems to be the relatively small camp of people who thoroughly enjoyed Materialists (2025). ‘The romcom has returned’ cried many upon seeing its trailer, just to later reveal they felt neither romanced nor amused after watching it. Perhaps others had set their expectations too high. I find it to be a fine film, and like Celine Song’s debut, Past Lives (2023) to be thematically rich and textured. Most importantly, it is exceptionally relevant to our postmodern dating climate.
Through the vocation of matchmaking, we are made aware of the extreme superficiality and triviality of modern dating. Our protagonist and professional matchmaker, Lucy (Dakota Johnson), responsible for an astounding nine marriages through her services breaks it down to us from early on in the films run time. Dating is simply a numbers game, and marriage, the prize of dating, is still in its most modern iteration, a business proposal. Dating is a matter of maths.
On the surface the film presents a classic love triangle trope, the perfect guy (Pedro Pascal) vs the imperfect ex (Chris Evans). Will she pick adventure, riches, and the novelty of something new over the chemistry of a past love, tainted by struggle. The dashingly handsome and affluent (private equity money, to be clear) Harry, or the also handsome but financially abysmal John, the struggling actor ex of five years who she bumps into working as wait staff at the wedding of a client. Both are handsome, both charm, but will their difference in material wealth be the deciding factor in who she chooses for her happily ever after? Is love really a numbers game?
Pedro Pascal in Materialists (2025)
What I enjoyed about this movie is that it plays with the classic idea, ‘should girl pick rich guy or poor guy with dreams?’ and uses this as a device to explore grander themes of individualism, capitalism, and society’s current preoccupation with lovelessness. Song uses this romantic plot device and the premise of luxury matchmaking (in none other than the bustling, non-stop city of New York) to explore how capitalism has ultimately hardened our hearts, and how hyperindividualism has ruined the quest for love, and the opportunity for intimacy.
We are reminded of a collective tendency to overlook loves mystique and ineffable quality in pursuit of the perfect person, ‘on paper’. How we forget the mysticism love allows. It reminds me of a passage from The Picture of Dorian Gray: “the harmony of soul and body (…) We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void” (pg. 13).
On a more practical, ordinary level, we are reminded of this through our use of dating apps. Our eyes sharpen and focus on the height listed on each profile, the age, the occupation, sometimes even the star sign. We look for the descriptors first, the personality after. I suppose that’s all you really can do when you are browsing images of strangers formatted like a deck of cards in the palm of your hand. It is near impossible to know the person until you meet, there is no magnetism to be found through the screen between you two. Perhaps this is why we have dating fatigue.
Materialists homes in on this point through satirical, almost caricatural sequences of varying inane demands made by the singletons using Lucy’s matchmaking services. Throughout these sequences, requests seem to only regard material factors: financial status (six figures a year), career (senior or entrepreneurial), age (strictly <30 only for men seeking women), and of course, height. In the trailer we witness a man in his late forties request a younger but more mature woman who he would appreciate be no older than 28. It is the very bleakness of this reality that makes this satirical segment of the movie, especially sting.
The fashion of the film is fall in New York at its finest, the cinematography, warm and fuzzy, and the score so delectable it rendered me watery eyed a few times. Perhaps we just have The Ronette’s and their orchestral delight, ‘So Young’ to thank for that. Thematically, this film delivers if the woes of postmodern dating intrigue you and the wonders of romance inspire you.
Materialists speaks to the anxieties of a modern dater, particularly to the modern dating woman, where material inadequacies relate largely to the physical, and we seem constantly pressed for time. Within me it stirred up quite a few feelings, mostly around waiting for my ‘great love’, my first love in fact. At their best, they manifest as anxious feelings that I am slightly behind, and at their worst, a fear that it might not happen for me. To assuage and counteract those fears, the film offers up a healthy dose of romantic existentialism, whilst still trusting in the enigma of love itself.
Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans in Materialists (2025)
Reviews which redundantly label the film as ‘broke boy propaganda’ were evidently not following or engaging with what the film had to say. Song wished to underline just how pervasively “capitalism is colonising our hearts”. Perhaps the main takeaway from the twitter-take reactions of Materialists is that media literacy is down, the film’s point is being missed! It is by no means flawless, the dialogue at times felt both stifled and poorly paced and the stakes weren’t all that high to keep you keenly invested in the plot. However, as an offering to the conversation on rampant materialism, under the easily marketable guise of a feel-good romcom, it suffices. In our heart of hearts we know, love should never be a numbers game.
*
Last week Monday I found myself up and early for a wedding. On the other side of London, passing through areas I’d never heard of (who knew there were so many parts of Acton), I journeyed with a tote bag full of tulle. I was to check into my hotel around the corner from the venue, slip on my dress, fasten my heels, and head out the door to meet the bride-to-be in the bridal suite. I wasn’t just a regular guest this time and felt somewhat superior, I was with the bride.
The weddings arrival was somewhat impromptu, though the idea had been floating around for a few months. Over coffee during the first week of September I sat across from my cousin, her face plastered with mischief, hiding a telling grin, and opened up a card asking me to be Maid of Honour. My pupils grew wide, and I immediately asked when. Once she told me it was just over a month away, I gasped, both her dogs looking back at me. I was simultaneously bemused and ecstatic.
Pre-wedding fit check: Gold sequin bag, Accessorize, trench coat, vintage Dolce & Gabbana, dress, Chi Chi London
Ironically for months I kept saying to friends how much I fancied a wedding, my last attended one being back in 2023. This time it felt much more personal and for that reason, somewhat surreal. I’d go dress shopping with her, help with picking the little details for the day, tiara, bouquet, shoes. It was all so exciting. We immediately bought out our phones and found ourselves on Pinterest, sharing inspiration for our respective dresses. Although the decision was so adult (marriage is framed as the pinnacle of reaching adulthood), there was something little-girl-like about wooing over voluminous, flowing dresses fit for a princess. It was like playing dress up all over again, perhaps one last time.
The main stage for dress up was no longer our Nan’s front room, the dresses were not Disney princess sets from Sainsbury’s, and our heels definitely weren’t made of glittering plastic. We went to various boutiques in Finsbury Park, and I watched her step into dresses of gigantic proportions until she found the one that was most befitting.
Exhausted from shopping, we got late-lunch at a cosy Turkish place with the groom-to-be and I watched them giggle over shakshuka, comparing it to the varying ones they’ve tried at various restaurants throughout their travels. It was refreshing to see a couple so in love, a man so enamoured.
On the afternoon of the wedding (it started in the evening), I rushed around in my hotel room after walking thirty minutes to the local co-op and back, begrudgingly spending £8 on just 4 items. I applied my red lip, maintained the security of my lashes (pressing them down extra hard on both ends of each eyelid), packed my bag for the wedding, put on my tights, jacket, and heels, and click-clacked to the venue.
When I got upstairs and saw her, hair and makeup all done, I was, without notice, misty-eyed. I rushed in to give her hugs and compliments. My cousin is exceedingly beautiful all of the time, with spiralled walnut curls and bright blue doe eyes. Seeing her professionally done up did not astonish me in a ‘transformation’ sense, but in a way that is best described as a paradigm shift; it was somehow conceivable for her to look even more stunning.
The music from L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole began to play on the heavy-duty speakers, and the singer sang sweetly. The familiar tune seemed to mellow all of the guests, as though they felt warmed by familiar romance. Jazz has that effect. My cousin had a penchant for jazz and was excited for the singer when she came on stage, giving the DJ a rest. The singer was a special, last-minute gift for the bride, from the groom. Later, when I told this to friends, we’d coo in unison, love is real!
At the end of the reception, I collected various bits from the bridal suite in a hurry, hand full of our coats, her heels, the giant garment bag for the dress, our phones, and a big bag of gifts. The bride and groom were already outside in their getaway car, a shiny black Rolls Royce with an orange leather interior, complete with a friendly chauffeur. I packed the boot with her stuff and stood back to watch them, their family members, and his friends all drive off. “Chloe, you’re getting in”, shouted the groom from the backseat. “I am?” I asked, surprised and excited as I hurried to the front door.
My cousin had made a point of having me come along for the cruise—this was the fun part where we drove from somewhere in the borough of Brent to their hotel in Mayfair along with about four other cars, tooting in celebration at their nuptials. It also meant I could be their personal photographer and take Just Married-style photos of them loved up in the backseat, beneath the signature starlight headliner roof of a Royce.
I made sure to have the camera in Cinematic mode. Just before we arrived, her husband insisted I make sure I took photos of myself too, the illustrious double R behind my head. “Don’t worry, I already have!” I assured, as we both giggled.
Arriving at a carpark around the corner from their hotel, the men disembarked from their vehicles, a range of varying Mercedes, one of which included a G-Wagon. It really was a wonder up close, I was slightly jealous I couldn’t get in, trying to climb my luxury-car-riding high to the top. Friends and family alike cheered, circling the groom, ululating, cheering, and clapping. It was so beautiful to be enveloped in the sheer joy at another’s happiness. I left thinking, I can’t wait for my next. The celebration of love is such a joyous endeavour, they should all be this wholehearted and fun.
*
As autumn marches on and darkness arrives much earlier each evening, it is apparent that we have entered into the season of letting it linger. And linger I like to let it. In these trying times I find myself particularly sentimental, falling back into sixties soul and jazz, genres I’ve always regarded as perfect for autumn. I am especially inclined to listen to doo-wop on extra cold evenings and uncharacteristically bright mornings. Perhaps that is down to my unavoidable feminine sensibilities and fondness of the maudlin. More likely, it’s just that it is such enjoyable music.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1890)
These songs often cause anemoia, nostalgia for a time I’ve never experienced, yearning for a love I’m yet to touch. The instrumentals are always fantastical and world-building, orchestral, ethereal. The perfect soundscapes for imaginings.
The morning after the wedding I couldn’t stop singing Chapel of Love by The Dixie Cups, naturally. The days following I would blurt out the lyrics to So Young in the kitchen or whilst preparing an outfit in my bedroom. ‘We wanna get married, but we’re so young (so young). So young (so young). Can’t marry no one.’ A week later, it still plays in my head.
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