The love market has been discussed and dissected by academics and artists, and the age-old question of ‘Will you marry solely for love?’ continues to put many in a moral dilemma. You know you’ll be judged if you walk away from your partner just because they are broke, but you live in a capitalist society, and every choice you make at the end of the day depends on your financial status. You might even feel irrelevant if you don’t participate in the consumerist culture; the desire to experience the finer things in life becomes impossible to suppress, and you ultimately decide that it’s better to be rich and lonely than in love and broke. Celine Song analyzes this dilemma through a non-judgmental lens in Materialists. The economy and the social structure have produced cynics who prefer pragmatism over emotionally charged decisions when it comes to marriage, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, can someone truly ever settle for a loveless marriage after experiencing life on a high oxytocin level?
Materialists is not meant to move you but to push you to self-reflect, and I have to admit, unlike Past Lives, Song’s second film might not be well liked by everyone in the audience. The film gets into the nitty gritty of modern dating, so if you’ve been in the dating game, you will possibly feel seen and relate to the characters. While it’s unfair to compare two films of vastly different tones, if I have to, there is no denying that Materialists is not really as impactful as Past Lives. There is a sense of meditativeness in the long silences and pauses that will remind you of Song’s debut, blended with witty dialogue and humorous takes. As a rom-com, it is a film meant for the era we’re living in. The ending felt a little out of tune with the rest of the film—I appreciate the hopefulness, but the tinge of impracticality felt like a desperate nod to the 2000s rom-com that we’ve grown up watching and that has practically shaped our unrealistic romantic expectations. Coming back to the genre, I loved how Song stripped the rose-tinted filter and exposed the harsh reality of wanting to find love. Let’s be real, stumbling upon the love of your life at a coffee shop or a bookstore is rare, and in a fast-paced world, you will end up installing that dating app you cringed at to begin with. And it marks the starting point of an endless cycle: swiping left, swiping right, a string of mediocre-to-decent dates, followed by the quiet resignation that maybe love isn’t meant for you, and you decide to delete the app. Then one night, you watch The Notebook (big mistake!), and suddenly romance feels possible again. So, you reinstall the app, (putting yourself in a vulnerable position not knowing if you’ll meet a creep or the love of your life next)… only to be let down all over again.
If you can imagine the frustration and exhaustion of the 00’s rom-com characters had they stepped out of their rosy little world into our grim reality, that pretty much sums up Lucy (Dakota Johnson) and John (Chris Evans) in Materialists. In the real world, falling in love is not the challenge, impressing the one you’re attracted to is not really a hurdle; here, staying in love, or rather choosing love when you have a buffet of attractive alternatives, is the hard part. Lucy, a matchmaker in New York, was sure about one thing in life—she would marry rich. She was in a love/hate relationship with her own practicality. Love without conditions was not really her thing; after all, love alone cannot satisfy your appetite. She was deeply attracted to John, her perpetually broke former lover, but after weighing the pros and cons of being in a relationship with him, she had arrived at the conclusion that they couldn’t afford to have a future together. While John lived in his cramped New York apartment, working a catering gig and pursuing a career in acting, Harry Castillo (Pedro Pascal), who came from generational wealth, introduced Lucy to the finer things in life. As someone who’d grown up watching her parents bicker about money, Lucy hoped to do better, and Harry was the kind of partner she knew she would never have to get petty with. The choice was simple going by the boxes and lists Lucy had in mind, but even then she struggled to make a decision.
Song underlines the boxes that you unintentionally create for yourself—a height requirement, a desirable physique, a certain personality, hairline, smile, occupation, salary, etc., etc. The obsession around such hollow criteria is unfair, yet the world has unanimously accepted it, and by now it has almost become a subconscious choice one makes. You’ve shaped your mind to filter out anyone as possible romantic partners if they fail to tick the boxes—but isn’t love supposed to be about feelings? Or, have we collectively agreed that not living up to Western beauty standards makes one undesirable in the marriage market? The closer you look at the beauty and the marriage/dating industry, the more you will notice how well they are meshed up together. Magnifying insecurities is pretty much the rule of the game, and the hunt for love eventually becomes a desperate attempt to achieve physical ‘perfection.’ Materialists poses the question of whether the idea of physical ‘perfection’ is enough to find a desirable partner. And can a ‘desirable’ partner on paper be the love of your life?
Rom-com is not an easy genre to crack, especially now that we have come to a point where we can openly address how unrealistic it has always been. Yes, there is the feel-good factor, but at what delusional cost! Making a rom-com in 2025 is not easy; the generation that once swooned over Notting Hill, Sleepless in Seattle, 13 Going on 30, and 27 Dresses has moved on, so looking at the genre through a critical lens and addressing the nuances of being in love and of choosing love is the right way to go. The film tactfully deals with the negotiation that every other person has to go through in the journey of wanting to settle down. There is no doubt that the more convenient our lives have grown, the more challenging it has become to find love. The socio-economic checkboxes have always played a decisive role in the love market, and while that continues to be how a large number of people find their life partners, there are fools who still choose love, even on the blue days.
