Materialists

A woman once told me her highest philosophy. 

“My mama always said it was as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is with a poor man.” 

She did, I think, marry a rich man who was the son of a rich man. They live in a nice house and I’m sure take nice vacations. On the weekends they go out in the boat and she lives less than 50 miles from the place she was born. 

I don’t know if there is any lesson here but Writer/Director Celine Song has one in mind with Materialists. 

Materialists is about a matchmaker catering to the upper crust of New York City. She sees both sides of the equation. The girls want them tall and rich. The boys want them young and “fit.” Both sides say they want to marry but only the right one. Only the perfect one. Certainly you concede that they deserve it. 

Having seen write director Celine Song’s debut Past Lives I suspected that the marketing for her latest was bullshit. 

I like being right almost as much as I like a sad, cutting, adult drama.

Materialists mimics some aspects of rom coms, including a love triangle, beautiful cinematography and expensive looking weddings. Sadly, we never get to go on an Iceland vacation. 

I suspect that was never even in a draft of the script but I also would not be surprised if the trip was scrapped somewhere during production for lack of money. Most modern movies always give away the truth of our current situation, that only bankers run movie studios anymore.

Song even has her own twist on the When Harry Met Sally vignettes. Giving us a glimpse of what upscale NYC men and woman want in a spouse. 

The joke being how incredibly shallow everyone is about these things. 

The movie suggests that there is more to life than wealth and I honestly believe that. Wealth won’t save you from a rotten marriage or a rotten life or a rotten heart. 

But I have been poor and I have been, if not wealthy, then financially healthy. Finachially healthy is better. 

There are certainly some other arrows you could aim at this flick.

If Past Lives felt like it was very much about real people Materialists feels like storybook people moving through a mostly real world. One of these guys is a billionaire, the other is a failed actor and she’s a matchmaker. Most of us might know one of these people in real life maybe, but few of us would ever meet all three.

Dakota Johnson seems a lot more charming and edgy in her interviews than she ever does on screen.

Pedro is very good but a lot of his storyline involves he and Johnson just straightforward explaining things to each other. Including the kind of things that should probably create more tears than they do.

Evans knocks it out of the park though.

At one point he turns to Johnson and says, “I’m a beggar for you.”

Folks, if any decent man or woman ever sincerely says that to you I hope you love them back no matter what their checkbook might say.