Celine Song follows up her 2022 feature, Past Lives, with another three piece of on screen lovers. This time we have Dakota Johnson as a matchmaker (made up job?) caught between the choices of her past (Chris Evans) and her future (Pedro Pascal).
At the heart of this movie, we have a pretty standard love triangle that doesn’t handle everything in the standard ways. Instead of attempting to make our characters relatable with over the top comedy, we get real life situations. Where the typical romantic aspects might not even be the things that are pulling on your heart strings. It’s a much deeper film about being human. Defiant contrasts bring a light and darkness throughout, whether it’s the characters or the subtly obvious NYC backdrop.
Johnson in the lead role is soft spoken, yet firm, and gets the most to do in many ways. It barely feels like she’s acting with the press tour clips I’ve been seeing, and that’s perfect. She’s perfect. Speaking of perfect, Pedro Pascal. Even though Pedro has been super saturated lately, it doesn’t mean I didn’t love every second of him on screen. Evans goes back to a role from his pre Captain America days and he and Pascal are a great, but separate, duo. I will say all of the characters work super well on their own, to a slight disadvantage to the overall story.
Materialists goes down unexpected, but welcome, paths. Diving into what feels like the real life effects of Tinder or Bumble, made for a spin on the genre as a whole. The film has a way of making things just serious enough for adults while being not too artificial in the story telling. It’s engaging even when characters are just driving around.
A movie about choices and second chances. Celine Song might not 100% convince me of her romances, but a film filled with flirty dialogue spoken by hot actors is a certain romantic’s dream.
7.8/10
Dallas Fisher 
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