A-Listers can make crappy romcoms, too! I know, this came as a shock to me as well. But it turns out that a crappy premise and a “meh” script can undermine any romcom, even if stars Chris Evans, Dakota Johnson, and Pedro Pascal. No, they aren’t Lacey Chabert and Wes Brown, these are genuinely talented people, not just blow-up dolls behind “in case of romcom break this glass” at the Hallmark Channel. It didn’t matter. If you’re addicted to Hallmark TV, this is your Holy Grail; for the rest of us, this is another empty cup.
Lucy (Johnson) is professional matchmaker. That’s her job. She makes $80k/year. In 2025. No, this is real. Apparently, we live in a world where cellphones and internet and tinder and hinge and match all exist (I think; this film didn’t really talk about rival matchmaking services), and yet a matchmaker can make $80k doing full-time what an algorithm does in three seconds. Hey, don’t knock her! She’s really good at her job; she’s made nine (9) whole matches so far!
Let me walk back a bit of that. Dating apps can be cesspools. And non-widowed men who are single in their 40s have issues. There’s almost no getting around either of those facts. And anybody who has tested the middle-aged dating market knows exactly what I’m talking about.
At a wedding, Lucy encounters Harry (Pascal), a unicorn. He’s fortysomething, but rich, charming, independent, problem-free, single, and looks exactly like Pedro Pascal. Men like this don’t exist in real life. Hence … unicorn. And yet, my thought is, “If you are labeling him a unicorn, you are not looking hard enough.” No man who can be described thusly and WANTS a full commitment stays single for long.
Logic ain’t a friend of Materialists. Speaking of which, Lucy’s ex-, John (Evans), is also still single, due almost entirely to his lack-of-income. I find this hard to believe as well (though less-hard than the rich single guy), but at least we know John has had a history of dating and is a starving actor; we aren’t just guessing about why he’s single. This film has a disturbing relationship with money. It lets us in on the completely guessable secret that money makes all the difference in matchmaking (only so it can undercut this lesson later on). But before that happens, we’ve exposed most of the cast as shallow and unrealistic. i.e. whatever point this film was trying to make about love matches v. business matches – are you sure you made it?
Harry is not into Lucy’s business card. Harry is into Lucy, who seems devoted to the single life after struggling with one-too-many of John’s poverty moments. Her 
top three criteria are $, $$, and $$$. And yet, the terms “Gold Digger” and “Sugar Daddy” never show up in this screenplay, either. The not-so-subtle title lets us know that eventually Lucy will shed being a Material Girl, but not before we see a lot of Pedro Pascal’s $12M apartment and the used condom on the floor of John’s communal kitchen.
Well, gosh, there’s just somethin’ here for everybody, isn’t there?
The saddest part of Materialists is that the half-assed love triangle plot does give way to a genuinely moving relationship between Lucy and her client, Sophie (Zoë Winters). The rest of the film felt like a bad excuse to match up people who would have no problem getting dates and commitments under any circumstances. This film happened at exactly the wrong time of year (entering summer instead of winter), which I’m sure makes it novel and exciting for the Hallmark crowd, but -personally- I’m expecting a film like this to be followed by Hot Frosty 2: the Frostening.
There once was a matchmaker, Lucy
Who gave her card to every gent you see
But when it came to her heart
She set it apart
For an income that’s phenomenally juicy
Rated R, 116 Minutes
Director: Celine Song
Writer: Celine Song
Genre: Movies that should have come out in February
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Women in love with PedroChris PascalEvans
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who already saw this movie ten times during Christmas
