“Materialists” (2025), the “not-so-romantic” romantic comedy that offended the world, is less romantic than disillusioned. Among the most popular in this type of film is Jon M. Chu’s “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018). It followed the usual formula: exceptional love, charming and attractive main characters, and inevitable conflict. But, it also exposed Singapore’s tense classism, as well as the racial and cultural hardships experienced by immigrants and Asian-Americans. “Crazy Rich Asians” became one of the most popular romantic comedies to create cracks in the fun, entertaining world of romantic comedies. In this crack, the weeds of an imperfect, flawed reality began to grow. The sacred genre — where love is not just a band-aid but a magical cure, and any problem can be solved with a kiss in the rain and an airport chase — became threatened by real-world imperfections. This is appalling, but endlessly blasphemous to audiences, much like what happened to Celine Song’s “Materialists.”
Song was introduced by her devastating debut film “Past Lives” (2023), which quickly made her a fresh voice in cinema. It came as a surprise and delight to hear of her next project — a surprise because she marketed “Materialists” as a romantic comedy, and Song doesn’t strike as the type to create such a commercially digestible and superficial film, and a delight because of the delusion that audiences could receive both a formulaic romantic comedy and a beautifully shot, wonderful film by an acclaimed writer. “Finally,” eager fans thought, “a rom-com that doesn’t actually suck.” But the flagged genre was only a scheme, a honey in a fly-trap, to attract nostalgic fans. What Song really did was both uncover society’s shallow priorities and revolutionize the romantic comedy genre.
Song selected serious but likable actors who could easily play desirable and in-depth characters. Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a matchmaker for the company Adore, who finds herself in a “love triangle” with an old flame, John (Chris Evans), and a new suitor, Harry (Pedro Pascal). We find ourselves stuck with a pessimistic and shallow Lucy, who talks about people like they are merchandise available for purchase, arguing about her clients’ “specialty appeal” and how they’re not “competitive in the mainstream market.” On Lucy’s first date with Harry, their conversations sound like business meetings: she shamelessly interviews him on his financial background and alcohol consumption habits. Confused about this six-foot, ridiculously rich (with a $12 million apartment) man’s interest in her, she tells him: “Given your position in the marketplace, and given mine, I’m not a girl you marry.” This perfectly exhibits her shallow understanding of a person’s worth based on superficial qualities. Moreover, this exchange illustrates her insecurities over her economic background, age, and even her body. For her, dating is “math,” an objective theory and axiom, like one plus one equals two. She compares her job to an insurance agent, having made a career of reducing people to numerical values.
As awful as this is, it’s still a genuine depiction of today’s dating culture: rounding personality traits and characteristics into a scale of one to ten. “He’s a ten, but…” “She’s a five, but…” Dating has become a cost-benefit analysis, a series of trade-offs and non-negotiables, rather than love. Yes, love exists, but most people are fine living without it. They settle with people who give them a feeling (not love) they can’t live without, whatever that may be. As an example, one of Lucy’s clients identifies that she is getting married not because her fiancé is the love of her life but because “he makes her sister jealous” and “makes her feel like she’s won.” The sad part is that this admission is what catapults her into getting married: the realization that she feels valuable, not loved. The film tragically never addresses this absence of love.
Song encourages us to judge this shallow culture, but also to realize that it is closely intertwined with self-hatred, shame, and our deep insecurities about life. The psychological consequences of our childhood and life create toxic perspectives that bleed into our romantic preferences. Lucy’s parents constantly fought about money, which made her develop a resentment towards John and his “poor” lifestyle. This is also why money, for her, was non-negotiable in a future partner.
There is always a choice between love and material values. In classic rom-coms, love is conveniently tangled with stable financial backgrounds and welcoming societal factors. The male love interest is either tall, rich, smart, or organized. Or, if they’re not, we can assume that their flaws will fade away after a love confession prefaced by an airport chase. Unfortunately, life is not as fair. Lucy’s choice between Harry and John is one between love and financial luxury. She has two paths, one of love and the other of fantasies she has harbored since childhood. Song doesn’t make love convenient. She reflects reality in its impossible scenarios. Most of the movie’s criticism comes from an audience who would not have made the same choice as Lucy. Lucy, who chooses love and sheds her materialistic inclinations, picks the broke, struggling 37-year-old man with only $2,000 in his bank account.
This theme, a biting critique of the romantic comedy genre and modern love, left audiences appalled. Also irritating to audiences was the not-so-subtle reflection of their own preferences. Instead of escaping into a make-believe world of unrealistically perfect men, they are forced into a freezing reality check, and this is not what they signed up for.
