Materialists promised romance, but left us with nothing.
I was ready to be torn. Emotionally devastated. Caught between Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans, each one flawed but magnetic, each one offering a different version of love. I wanted that slow-burn, angst-filled triangle where the decision feels impossible and your heart breaks no matter who she chooses. I wanted the film to make me feel something.
Instead, Materialists gave me the emotional equivalent of elevator music.
Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is a high-end matchmaker for Manhattan’s wealthy elite. She is elegant, emotionally closed off, and seemingly incapable of joy. She’s dating Harry (Pedro Pascal), a soft-spoken, rich guy. He is meant to be the wildcard, the romantic outlier, but he is so emotionally vacant and awkwardly placed in the story that it’s impossible to root for him. Their relationship feels like watching strangers fumble through a bad second date.
Then there’s John (Chris Evans), Lucy’s ex, a wannabe actor who doesn’t stop complaining about money and his situation. He doesn’t change. He doesn’t grow. And yet the story bends around him like he’s the one who got away.
There is no real chemistry in either pairing. No heat. No ache. Just two underwritten men, one awful and one underused, and a woman who deserves better than both.
*SPOILER AHEAD*
By the end, Lucy goes back to John in a quick overnight decision. No time for even a coffee, she just switches boyfriends with the blink of an eye. Not because he has proven himself or earned her trust, but because she believes, tragically, that she deserves what she had growing up. It is a gut-punch of a line, but not in a cathartic way. It lands like the film is giving up on her. On all of us.
Materialists wants to be clever. It wants to say something about capitalism, trauma, and transactional dating. However, it fails to provide its audience with any emotional reason to care. There is no love story here. No passion. Just sad inevitability wrapped in some nice outfits. (Side note, John could not afford the suits he was wearing in the film.)
If you’re a fan of love triangles, reverse harems, or even just the basic promise of romantic tension, skip this. This isn’t a woman torn between two lovers. This is a woman with two bad options and little to no desire to fight for herself. Would I watch this film again? Absolutely not. The trailer is better than the entire film.
