Chris Knipp
06-15-2025, 06:54 PM
CELINE SONG: MATERIALISTS (2025)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/images/%20matsg2.jpg
[FROM THE POSTER SHOWING CHRIS ATKINS, DAKOTA JOHNSON, AND PEDRO PASCAL]
Material girl learns she isn't
Celine Song's smart and absorbing sophomore effort is less brilliant and less passionate than her stunning 2023 debut, Past Lives (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5187), one of the best films of the year, which dealt with lost loves and lost culture from a unique Korean diaspora point of view. This time she's ringing changes on the rom-com by debunking the materialism of contemporary New York matchmaking and plumping for love instead. There is not the span of lives and years and worlds o f the first film, but Song has rung some changes on the traditional rom-com. It's a bit of a come-down, (literally from 94% to 70% on the Metacritic scale) , but it held my interest nearly throughout. I was a bit let down by the romantic finale.
This protagonist is Lucy (the long-haired, perfect-looking Dakota Johnson), the star employee of Adore, a Manhattan matchmaking outfit. She works with men and women who are looking for mates, and her services have led to no less than nine weddings. Adore's job is to find men who, in the lingo, "check the boxes," their girl clients' wish lists--or more like their demands. They will rarely settle for any guy who's less than six feet tall, makes less than a couple hundred thousand a year, isn't handsome and hasn't got a full head of hair. The men want girls in their twenties. Settling for "older" will mean maybe twenty-seven.
The demands are outrageous, but this is New York, which is notoriously competitive and very expensive. But Lucy addresses one woman who has submitted pages and pages of requirments but insists this is just what she must have and that she deserves it because, she says, "I'm a catch." Lucy explains that such elaborate specifications could be met only if she were producing cyber males, but these are people. "And you're not a catch," she says, "because you're not a fish."
We attend a wedding Lucy has brought about, or at least assisted, and this is where the main action--a trio involving two men and her--begins. A wealthy gentleman named Harry (Pedro Pascal) reaarranges the seating at the singles table to come on to her. He turns out to be what Adore calls "a unicorn" - a ten: tall, goodlooking and personable, has a good job, rich: he's got everything. Lucy is eager to take him on as an Adobe client but insists she is absolutely not for him, not his equal. Not important enough, not rich enough, not goodlooking enough. Harry doesn't agree, and draws Lucy into a date nonetheless. She is what he wants. Can't he pick and choose? He's got everything.
But at this moment John (Chris Evans, excellent, and winning) comes up to the table, Lucy's former boyfriend, working as a server for the caterers (who're called Stand and Deliver--giving even catering an aggressive, competitive New York air). There was something that led to the hiatus, but Lucy and John are happy to see each other. The competition for Lucy will be between Harry, with a fortune in finance and a twelve-million-dollar Tribeca loft, and John, an aspiring actor who still lives in a crummy shared apartment and drives a beat-up car and works in catering, which can hardly compare with Harry's career in investment banking, et cetera, et cetera.
But the pull is both ways. Actually Harry doesn't last very long. He and Lucy go on some dates. She loves that he can take her to a really nice restaurant and not even think about it. She is dazzled by the Tribeca loft (the ceilings almost distract her from the sex), and when he asks her where she'd like to travel and she says Iceland, he says let's go, and he arranges a quick passport for her. But Iceland is not to be, because Lucy realizes Harry is only the anti-John: John's poverty has made her dream of someone very rich, which is all that John isn't, and will never be. Lucy convinces Harry that they don't love each other and never will. They've been dating ideas.
Lucy is called back to John to watch a preview of the new play he's in, something a little surreal (an amusing hint, perhaps one of the playwright fiimmaker's sketches?). But where John is really called back comes with Sophie (Zoe Winters), Lucy's current favorite, but most difficult, Adobe client, whose trouble with a man arranged by the agency is a terrible disaster that devastates Lucy, and she calls on John to comfort her. She has sublet her apartment for the month in Iceland that she cannot go on now, for multiple reasons.
This leads us to a drive to the country in John's beat-up Volvo, whose familiar smell, like John, comforts Lucy. Is John a sort of doormat? No, he simply really loves Lucy. Because he doesn't check the boxes, because he's not a unicorn, he can't make any demands. But one thing he can do is declare his undying love. This he does, very prettily, and Lucy and John shake hands on his offer--paralleling the handsome and sweet Stone Age couple that bookends the film, with the same engagement ring made of a flower. Song blends the realistic and the sweet nicely here, and explains things wordlessly in the closing credits through a continuous shot of City Hall's civil ceremony arrivals area with dozens of multicultural, gaily dressed couples coming and going, a playbook of how simple a wedding can be.
As is so often the case, this is very much like a Jane Austen novel, except that Lucy, despite making matchmaking her area of professional expertise (sort of: it's hinted Adore is a bit of a scam)--and it appears she is getting a promotion to bureau director in the better world where John will also strive to become a waiter in a real restaurant--the story cannot really end here, in Jane Austen terms. At least this is not a completed match. Perhaps there's love, and John promises his is faithful and lasting--there has been talk more than once about true marriage being up to the grave--but the conditions are not yet met for a Jane Aiusten union. Not in New York, anyway.
I also felt that, while the examination of current New York matchmaking among the more-or-less-young (some of the men are well into their forties) is smart, cogent, sometimes funny, Song's tale lacks some of the bouyancy and variety of a good rom-com, which usually has more couples, pals, actions, and venues to enliven it. But Song works with a more limited pallette, and she works distinctively. This is an original film, however its elements may seem more familiar than those of the wonderful Past Lives. She' will keep on coming up with great films, and maybe something as emotionally shattering and culturally rich--and related to Asian/American experience--as her first film next time (there was only one Asian man in all the scenes of Materialists).
Materialists, 105 mins., released by A24 Jun. 13, 2025. Screened for this review at Cinemark Century Hilltop 16, Richmond CA. Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/materialists/) rating: 70%. 9now lowered to 69%).
http://www.chrisknipp.com/images/%20matsg2.jpg
[FROM THE POSTER SHOWING CHRIS ATKINS, DAKOTA JOHNSON, AND PEDRO PASCAL]
Material girl learns she isn't
Celine Song's smart and absorbing sophomore effort is less brilliant and less passionate than her stunning 2023 debut, Past Lives (https://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5187), one of the best films of the year, which dealt with lost loves and lost culture from a unique Korean diaspora point of view. This time she's ringing changes on the rom-com by debunking the materialism of contemporary New York matchmaking and plumping for love instead. There is not the span of lives and years and worlds o f the first film, but Song has rung some changes on the traditional rom-com. It's a bit of a come-down, (literally from 94% to 70% on the Metacritic scale) , but it held my interest nearly throughout. I was a bit let down by the romantic finale.
This protagonist is Lucy (the long-haired, perfect-looking Dakota Johnson), the star employee of Adore, a Manhattan matchmaking outfit. She works with men and women who are looking for mates, and her services have led to no less than nine weddings. Adore's job is to find men who, in the lingo, "check the boxes," their girl clients' wish lists--or more like their demands. They will rarely settle for any guy who's less than six feet tall, makes less than a couple hundred thousand a year, isn't handsome and hasn't got a full head of hair. The men want girls in their twenties. Settling for "older" will mean maybe twenty-seven.
The demands are outrageous, but this is New York, which is notoriously competitive and very expensive. But Lucy addresses one woman who has submitted pages and pages of requirments but insists this is just what she must have and that she deserves it because, she says, "I'm a catch." Lucy explains that such elaborate specifications could be met only if she were producing cyber males, but these are people. "And you're not a catch," she says, "because you're not a fish."
We attend a wedding Lucy has brought about, or at least assisted, and this is where the main action--a trio involving two men and her--begins. A wealthy gentleman named Harry (Pedro Pascal) reaarranges the seating at the singles table to come on to her. He turns out to be what Adore calls "a unicorn" - a ten: tall, goodlooking and personable, has a good job, rich: he's got everything. Lucy is eager to take him on as an Adobe client but insists she is absolutely not for him, not his equal. Not important enough, not rich enough, not goodlooking enough. Harry doesn't agree, and draws Lucy into a date nonetheless. She is what he wants. Can't he pick and choose? He's got everything.
But at this moment John (Chris Evans, excellent, and winning) comes up to the table, Lucy's former boyfriend, working as a server for the caterers (who're called Stand and Deliver--giving even catering an aggressive, competitive New York air). There was something that led to the hiatus, but Lucy and John are happy to see each other. The competition for Lucy will be between Harry, with a fortune in finance and a twelve-million-dollar Tribeca loft, and John, an aspiring actor who still lives in a crummy shared apartment and drives a beat-up car and works in catering, which can hardly compare with Harry's career in investment banking, et cetera, et cetera.
But the pull is both ways. Actually Harry doesn't last very long. He and Lucy go on some dates. She loves that he can take her to a really nice restaurant and not even think about it. She is dazzled by the Tribeca loft (the ceilings almost distract her from the sex), and when he asks her where she'd like to travel and she says Iceland, he says let's go, and he arranges a quick passport for her. But Iceland is not to be, because Lucy realizes Harry is only the anti-John: John's poverty has made her dream of someone very rich, which is all that John isn't, and will never be. Lucy convinces Harry that they don't love each other and never will. They've been dating ideas.
Lucy is called back to John to watch a preview of the new play he's in, something a little surreal (an amusing hint, perhaps one of the playwright fiimmaker's sketches?). But where John is really called back comes with Sophie (Zoe Winters), Lucy's current favorite, but most difficult, Adobe client, whose trouble with a man arranged by the agency is a terrible disaster that devastates Lucy, and she calls on John to comfort her. She has sublet her apartment for the month in Iceland that she cannot go on now, for multiple reasons.
This leads us to a drive to the country in John's beat-up Volvo, whose familiar smell, like John, comforts Lucy. Is John a sort of doormat? No, he simply really loves Lucy. Because he doesn't check the boxes, because he's not a unicorn, he can't make any demands. But one thing he can do is declare his undying love. This he does, very prettily, and Lucy and John shake hands on his offer--paralleling the handsome and sweet Stone Age couple that bookends the film, with the same engagement ring made of a flower. Song blends the realistic and the sweet nicely here, and explains things wordlessly in the closing credits through a continuous shot of City Hall's civil ceremony arrivals area with dozens of multicultural, gaily dressed couples coming and going, a playbook of how simple a wedding can be.
As is so often the case, this is very much like a Jane Austen novel, except that Lucy, despite making matchmaking her area of professional expertise (sort of: it's hinted Adore is a bit of a scam)--and it appears she is getting a promotion to bureau director in the better world where John will also strive to become a waiter in a real restaurant--the story cannot really end here, in Jane Austen terms. At least this is not a completed match. Perhaps there's love, and John promises his is faithful and lasting--there has been talk more than once about true marriage being up to the grave--but the conditions are not yet met for a Jane Aiusten union. Not in New York, anyway.
I also felt that, while the examination of current New York matchmaking among the more-or-less-young (some of the men are well into their forties) is smart, cogent, sometimes funny, Song's tale lacks some of the bouyancy and variety of a good rom-com, which usually has more couples, pals, actions, and venues to enliven it. But Song works with a more limited pallette, and she works distinctively. This is an original film, however its elements may seem more familiar than those of the wonderful Past Lives. She' will keep on coming up with great films, and maybe something as emotionally shattering and culturally rich--and related to Asian/American experience--as her first film next time (there was only one Asian man in all the scenes of Materialists).
Materialists, 105 mins., released by A24 Jun. 13, 2025. Screened for this review at Cinemark Century Hilltop 16, Richmond CA. Metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/movie/materialists/) rating: 70%. 9now lowered to 69%).