Film Review - The Materialists (2025)

The Materialists is the new movie by Celine Song who’s last film was Past Lives and this one stars Dakota Johnson as Lucy, a matchmaker who works to set people up with their potential life partner and one night she meets the brother of one of her clients (Pedro Pascal) and falls for him, she also reunites with an old acting friend (Chris Evans) and begins to get conflicted over who she will choose.

The Materialists is a very enjoyable film but this is definitely more of a romantic drama than a romantic comedy which the previews for the film tried to sell it as and I went with it, Johnson is particularly good here and sometimes she has been hit and miss but when she has a good director like Celine Song who will work with her she can give a good performance as opposed to Madame Web where she was more or less told to stand around, hit her marks, say her lines and drink cans of Pepsi which did nothing for her at all.

Also very good are Pascal and Evans and both have distinct character arcs that I found a little predictable at times I still got caught up in their stories and performances and Pascal in particular is very good at turning on the charm with his puppy dog eyes and dazzling smile.

And this movie has some interesting insights into romance as well with some scenes making me go “What the Fuck”/”Get the Fuck Out of here” and “THIS ISN’T A FUCKING BUSINESS TRANSACTION” and Lucy’s job definitely requires you to have a particular insight into people that sometimes Lucy either lacks or doesn’t quite take as seriously as she should especially when it comes to a key sideplot in this movie that thankfully Song handles very well.

And so that was the Materialists and I enjoyed it quite a bit, 3 and a half out of 5.