Materialists
A Review by Ava Bellows
MATERIALISTS REVIEW :
Love in the Age of Logistics
A Review by Ava Bellows
In Little Women, Amy tells Laurie in a monologue that has gripped an entire generation since 2019: “Don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you, but it most certainly is for me.” It’s one of those rare lines that doesn’t just describe a character’s perspective — it captures a reality so plainly that it stops being about the character at all. And it matters that Amy, despite this pragmatic outlook, marries Laurie. Not just for love, but also for wealth, safety, and a future that aligns both emotionally and economically.
Celine Song’s Materialists lives in the same space of contradiction. It’s about how hard we try to be practical in love, how the world teaches us to view romance as an investment — emotional, financial, sometimes even physical. And yet, like Amy’s monologue, it also dares to leave room for the wildly impractical, for the inexplicable pull between people. This is a movie that looks at love without filters, and asks what it’s worth, especially when everything else is designed to make us guarded, skeptical, and chronically unfulfilled.
When the poster and trailer dropped, my roommate immediately wrote it off. “I already know what this is,” he said, annoyed that a director he’d championed for her debut (Past Lives) would make something that looked like a rom-com. To him, the marketing signaled a betrayal — something too polished, too commercial, not worthy of seriousness. He hasn’t seen the movie yet. David, you’re so wrong. And I told you so.
Materialists Courtesy A24
Romantic comedies have always been dismissed, especially when made by women or for women. But the smartest rom-coms have always done what prestige dramas try so hard to achieve: capture the way people talk, dodge, reveal, flirt, and fail. They’re political. They map how we think about partnership and power. Materialists takes that idea and runs with it, giving us not a fantasy, but a startling mirror. This isn’t escapism. It’s excavation.
It might be the first truly honest romance of the modern era. Not the first to be well-written or emotionally astute, but the first to actually grapple with the current architecture of dating. Most romances today feel like wish-fulfillment, or worse, like two-hour Instagram ads for aesthetics and chemistry. This film says the quiet part out loud: modern love is not just harder, it’s warped. Dating now is less about discovery and more about negotiation. What do you earn, what do you want, what are you willing to give up? How much of yourself do you even show anymore?
Song refuses to pretend any of this is working. Instead, she dissects it with a scalpel. She captures the absurdity of dating under the illusion of “authenticity,” where every vulnerability is curated, every move premeditated, and yet we pretend we’re just going with the flow. And still, she leaves the door cracked open for something real to enter.
The performances crackle with nuance, especially Zoe Winters, who delivers one of the film’s most devastating truths: that for women, dating isn’t just disappointing — it’s dangerous. It’s this awareness that sets Materialists apart. The film sees dating culture clearly: how men often float through it, age out of empathy, and expect youth from their partners long after they’ve left it behind. And how women, raised to make themselves palatable and pliant, are left to navigate risk with a smile.
Materialists Courtesy A24
What’s miraculous is that the film doesn’t get bogged down in bitterness. It’s charming as hell. Dakota Johnson is poised, intelligent, funny — carrying her character with a weariness that never drags. Chris Evans, playing the ex we all secretly still root for, is tender and clear-eyed, proving that emotional availability can be as sexy as swagger. Pedro Pascal, somehow dialing down his natural charisma just enough, plays the man who seems perfect on paper — but Song is too smart to make the choice between these men obvious or easy. If Pascal had brought all his usual charm, the ending would never have landed the way it does.
Here’s the miracle: even with all that cynicism, Song still believes in love. Not the Instagrammable, brand-safe version of love. Not algorithmic compatibility, or a checklist of shared values. Real love. The kind that is inconvenient, irrational, terrifying. The kind that arrives with terrible timing, makes no sense on paper, threatens your plans, and doesn’t care how evolved or emotionally intelligent you think you are. She believes in the kind of love that upends you — not because it’s chaotic, but because it’s rare. Because it asks you to be fully seen.
Materialists Courtesy A24
That belief isn’t naive. It’s radical. Especially in a culture that teaches us to perform intimacy without risk, to build walls disguised as boundaries, and to calculate the ROI of connection. Materialists argues that if love means anything, it has to mean risk. And not just the risk of heartbreak, but the risk of exposure. Of being chosen not for the version of yourself that photographs well, but the version that is most unguarded and least impressive.
And yet, it’s also a film that lets itself be beautiful. The cinematography is plush and intimate. The score lingers. The dialogue is clever without ever losing its emotional weight. It’s a movie that both sheds light on the darker truths of modern connection — the power games, the privilege, the transactional nature of it all — while still holding onto something luminous.
It doesn’t lie to us. And that might be the most romantic thing of all.
WATCH TRAILER
Written & Directed by Cecile Song
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