Materialists

Celine Song’s follow up to Past Lives sets up as a more conventional rom-com, with Dakota Johnson as a high end matchmaker and Pedro Pascal as the handsome, charming billionaire who courts her. Chris Evans is her loser ex, a struggling actor, who shares none of his rival’s attributes but who might just be “the one” even so. The movie has fun rating men for date-ability in the way that we are more used to seeing women assessed: for their looks (stature; hair), their income, and conversational skills. It also broaches more serious themes about the dangers of modern day dating. It all makes for a witty and good looking one night stand.

Is heterosexual romance doomed, is the romantic comedy? Those questions swirl with light, teasing provocation in Celine Song’s Materialists, a seductive, smartly refreshed addition to an impossibly, perhaps irredeemably old-fashioned genre that was once a Hollywood staple… there are, romance fans know, few movie pleasures as agreeable as watching good-looking, talented actors playact love.

Manohla Dargis, New York Times

Materialists is more bittersweet than sweet—which is what makes it so wonderful, in a wistful, elusive way.

Stephanie Zacharek, Time

Sparkling, smart and sophisticated — finally, a rom-com for intelligent adults.

Rafer Guzman, Newsday