Materialists ― REVIEW

There’s something deeply unsettling about walking into a film by a director whose previous work you adored, only to leave feeling conflicted. Materialists left me both puzzled and disappointed not because it’s a failure, but because it seems to wrestle with its own contradictions. It flirts with complex ideas about love, money, and how we value others and ourselves but never fully commits to exploring them. 

I came into Materialists with a deep respect for Celine Song. Her debut, Past Lives, had moved me profoundly with its melancholic tenderness, its elegant handling of time, silence, and emotional intimacy. It announced a rare cinematic voice, one capable of transcending the clichés of modern romance. So when I heard her new project was titled Materialists, I was intrigued. That word, today, is as stigmatized as it is misunderstood. To be a “materialist” in our culture is often to be seen as shallow, selfish, morally dubious especially if you’re a woman. But there’s another side to it: materialism can also be a rejection of romantic naïveté, a clear-eyed acknowledgment that love alone doesn’t always stand up to reality. In that sense, Materialists had all the makings of a necessary film.

And yet.

The concept is promising: a woman must choose between two men: one wealthy, charismatic, and stable; the other an old flame, more volatile, financially precarious. In a world of sky-high rents and economic instability, this dilemma feels uncannily relevant. But the film quickly shies away from the complexity it sets up.

The issue isn’t her ultimate choice (she picks “the broke guy”) we don’t judge a protagonist for what she chooses, but for how the film gets us there. And here, we’re asked to swallow a resolution that’s never given any real depth. Why does she go back to him? What anchors their connection? Their shared past is mentioned but never embodied. We’re told they’re compatible, but it’s rarely shown. The final decision feels more symbolic than emotionally earned.

More troubling is the film’s implication that the heroine needs to unlearn her materialism as if her desire for financial stability is a moral failing, a specifically feminine pathology in need of correction. At a time when women are still having to justify their ambition and pragmatism, that message feels not only naïve but unjust.

Where Past Lives excelled through restraint and subtext, Materialists struggles to strike the right emotional distance. The relationships feel surface-level, the dynamics vague, the dialogue sometimes mechanical. We can sense the familiar archetypes: passion versus security, nostalgia versus comfort, impulse versus reason. But they’re never grounded enough to gain traction. Even the relationship with Chris Evans’ character John remains oddly flat, caught in a gloss that never cracks.

Perhaps what’s most frustrating is the film’s hesitance. It doesn’t dare to be fully romantic, nor does it lean into cynicism. It floats somewhere in the tepid space between those extremes, never diving into either. Which is ironic for a movie meant to interrogate our desires, our contradictions, and the invisible or very real forces that shape our choices.

And yet, the potential was there. The way money structures not just our relationships, but our sense of self, is fertile ground. Money is more than numbers or comfort it’s language, power, symbolism, weight. Materialists touches on these ideas but stays frustratingly coy. The script feels cautious, almost bashful, when what’s needed is a plunge into the core of these tensions: financial compatibility, social pressure, emotional debt, the economics of intimacy.

Walking out of Materialists, I wasn’t sure whether the film wanted to comfort me or challenge me. I left with the odd sensation of having watched a movie that grazed powerful questions but flinched as soon as they got messy. There are lovely moments, flashes of elegance, and piercing insights. But overall, the film lacks flesh, tension, and the willingness to sit with uncomfortable contradictions.

Celine Song remains a filmmaker worth watching and perhaps that’s why I expected more. Materialists could have been a sharp mirror held up to our times, or a radical daydream about modern love. Instead, it’s a pleasant, occasionally poignant film that plays it too safe, too vague, too restrained to truly shake or move us.

But maybe that’s also a kind of truth. The reality is, we’re all a little materialist torn between impulse and calculation, between what we want and what we fear. It’s just a shame the film didn’t dare say it louder.