We may want to know what love is, but we don’t always want it to show us…

In theatres tomorrow, Materialists manages to have its cake and eat it too because it works as a deliciously savage take down of the modern ideal of a romantic comedy while still actually being a rather sweet and genuine romantic comedy.

A young, ambitious New York City matchmaker (Dakota Johnson) finds herself torn between the perfect match (Pedro Pascal) and her imperfect ex (Chris Evans).

The magic of Materialists is pretty much how it owns how flawed and ultimately fucked up we all are in diluting ourselves that the ideal romantic match has to check off all these insane ideals of what we think we deserve when in reality it’s just wanting someone we can tolerate growing old with and who will occasionally pick up dinner on the way home from work.

Drawing from her own life experiences, writer/director Celine Song not only avoids the “sophomore slump” here on Materialists but she blasts it out of the water as this story is both emotionally engaging but also exists in a world so ridiculous and horrible that you can’t help but believe it since it’s born of our own insecurities.

Song rather deftly combines the trademark longing gazes between beautiful people and sprinkles in some satirical beats that are so subtle that you could easily miss them if you aren’t looking beyond the surface.   She crafts a bubble for her heroine Lucy that is glossy and aspirational while still allowing for an out from the artifice of fast life in the big city that she finds herself rolled up in.  It’s all weirdly horribly but still aspirational.  It’s the high life of New York City versus actually happiness and she blurs the line so exceptionally well making us as viewers wonder what it is that we actually want in the first place.

Dakota Johnson actually leans into the vibe of the early act of the film by being mildly unlikeable but also sympathetic all at the same time.  She takes us on a journey where hope actually doesn’t feel attainable until it actually is because we are allowed to see the cracks in the glossy armor of the matchmaker who feels like she’s at both a personal and professional cross roads without an actual clue of what to do.

Chris Evans opposite her as the handsome yet loveable fuckup still trying to be an “actor” actually serves as a beacon of hope in Johnson’s cold yet incredibly desirable orbit that she exists in.  He’s affable and not afraid to be flawed in Johnson’s world where he just doesn’t check all the right boxes.  They have palpable chemistry together and are hard to look away from.  Meanwhile Pedro Pascal makes for the most charmingly engaging diversion for Johnson’s Lucy because he keeps proving more often than not that he is checking all the boxes that she thought she wanted.  In a very low key way, all three of these actors are doing some of the best work of their careers, and that’s saying something.

Ultimately, Materialists is a sly commentary on the transactional nature of love and partnership.   We need to pay attention to it as we see what the modern pop culture social media landscape feeds us on a daily basis but also as we all look inward to our own wants and needs so we can truly decide what will make us happy and fulfilled and not live by the ideals that are being told to us.  Happiness and love comes out of realism and not out of a combination of factors that are out of our control before we go on our first coffee date with a person.