Quick Review: Materialists (2025)
Celine Song's second film is different but still offers a good time
Introduction:
Ever since Celine Song’s directorial debut with Past Lives, I have been eagerly waiting to see what she would come up with next. Past Lives is a film that I passionately loved and it was one of my favorites from 2023. Usually with trailers I try to stay away from them, but I had been looking at the marketing for Materialists and this rom-com feel that is was giving made me more excited to go check out and see what I would be like. After watching Materialists, even though the film did not play out the way it was advertised, I still was able to find enjoyment in the end for what it was.
Review:
I found myself engaged with the story of Materialists. I felt that it had a lot going on in it for me to stay engaged with the story that they were presenting. Even though it took off in a tone and story that I wasn’t expecting, I felt I could still appreciate a lot about it and I was overall fine with how the story went.
The main leads I felt each had something to offer in their respective roles that made it work for them. I feel Dakota Johnson can be hit or miss in performances, but I felt she worked out here and I like her character. Pedro Pascal is also great and he had this charm to him that really works for this role. My favorite performance that I wasn’t really expecting was from Chris Evans. He was great in this role and I felt like out of all of the performances, he was the one that was really going at it and making this character work. I thought overall that the three leads were great in their respective roles.
The strongest quality of the film I believe is Celine Song’s writing which I think makes this movie really work. The dialogue between characters is really well written and makes most of these characters who might not be as strong in other films be strong here. There’s many moments in the film where the dialogue shines and offers memorable moments to it. It was a very strong component in Past Life so it should be no surprise that it’s strong here as well. Celine Song just knows how to write engaging dialogue and it was perfect here.
Finally I do like the way the film approaches its themes. It had a interesting way of tackling the dating world that we live in today. It tells the audience how dating is hard but love is easy and I felt the way it showed that worked well here. I also liked the way that online dating was incorporated into the film as well. I like the way that it tells how people are focused on a checklist of what works with someone rather than finding the actual connection with someone. I overall really liked the way it handled it’s themes and that comes through with the execution of the story. I can see why it wouldn’t work for everyone based on how certain conflicts are handled within the story, but I liked how it presented itself.
As I’ve mentioned before the marketing of this movie set up a rom-com feel for this movie which after watching it, it’s not really a rom-com and more of a existential romance film. I think it mislead people thinking they would be watching something different and it does feel like a false way of getting people to watch it. I think there’s some cases where it could be interesting in not exactly telling the audience of what they’re getting into, but this film really doesn’t have a reason to do that so I get why people would feel mislead with it.
One of the biggest problems of the film I would say is that not everything comes together exactly right and it left me wanting more of what they were going for. I feel the character that I wanted more from in Pedro Pascals. He’s great in what he’s given, but he never feels exactly fleshed out and I wish we could’ve seen more of his character fleshed out a bit. There was also a subplot in the film that I felt didn’t get a proper conclusion that it could’ve gotten. It shows up midway through the film which I think the execution of it was well done, but when it did end up showing up again, it felt like they could’ve handled something this dark a little bit better.
One final critique I had with the film is I wish it did have a more distinct style attached to it because the overall presentation does look a bit bland. The technical aspect of the film does look fine, but nothing pops out where I think it looks interesting enough so I wish the film did have some more style going for it. With that said, I still found enjoyment in the film and liked it overall.
Final Thoughts:
Materialists is not going to click for everyone which with how it was marketed, I get why this would be the case. I did find a lot to appreciate about it and despite its problems, I did like it at the end of the day.
Thanks for the review.