The corporatization of love (Issue #8)
Plus Theater Camp and Out of Sight!
2025 ‧ Romance ‧ 1h 57m · Trailer
What happens when your film is marketed as a romantic comedy but:
Lacks comedy, aside from some flashes of humor
Reveals an out-of-left-field B-plot revolving around sexual assault
Features three Marvel actors that coalesce into an uneven Dakota Johnson performance and constant discourse on whether Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal were miscast or perfectly cast
Well…you’re going to be met with some divisive criticism. And that’s what Materialists ends up being — a litmus test on how you, as an individual, view love.
The film opens rather unexpectedly with Neanderthals doing Neanderthal things: residing in their cave, hunting, gathering, and showcasing affection. We then see this Neanderthal couple get engaged through the gesture of a field flower formed in the shape of an engagement ring that the male Neanderthal gathered.
Writer/Director Celine Song communicates clearly: as long as there have been Homo sapiens, there has been love.
So, why is corporate America hellbent on trying to sell us the latest and greatest iteration of love? The last time I was single was in 2018, and a lot hasn’t changed since. Dating apps have persevered; reality TV shows surveilling dating have consumed the zeitgeist; the need to verify if you’re not dating the same person in Facebook groups has skyrocketed. It’s because corporations can’t focus on love; they need to sell the dream of love through dating.
Materialists serves as a re-examination of dating in 2025 where finding a soulmate is a business transaction, trading dowries for penthouses.
The distinction between dating and love in the film is reminiscent of a cutthroat boardroom. It leaves no room for alternatives; execution must meet expectations. Dating is calculated, researched, and cold as it always has been. Love is freewheeling, unencumbered, and unpredictable as it always has been.
Song and I share a similar outlook on life. Song believes life is about feeling valuable — who can provide you value, when you feel most valuable, and what is your value. In a similar vein, validation is where I believe most of our wants, needs, and hidden desires stem from. When do I feel most validated? Who makes me feel most validated? Is my existence validated? There is no one with an answer, but we’re all looking for one. Of course, the one thing that (ideally) quells these existential questions is fortune.
The plot of Materialists says as much; revolving around a rising New York City matchmaker (Dakota Johnson), Lucy must choose between Harry, the flawless partner who checks all the boxes (Pedro Pascal), and John, an imperfect ex (Chris Evans) who still knows her best.
Celine Song’s inspiration for the film comes from lived-in experience. With Song’s past as a matchmaker herself, she harks back on how people of a certain affluence approach dating. Because those are the exact type of people who hire a matchmaker; people who view organic serendipity as formulaic givens.
You can tell she’s been in many of these rooms where status is discussed so openly that it becomes a dealbreaker, which is kind of confounding. There’s a scene in the film that features a bride Lucy is responsible for matching up with her dream partner, having a breakdown on her wedding day because she’s not sure if this is what she wants. Lucy delivers a soliloquy about feeling valuable, which makes the bride reveal the real reason she is getting married: her soon-to-be husband makes her sister envious; ultimately, that is enough status to feel valuable.
The film constantly challenges the notion that, because you come from a similar background, you are compatible. And to Song’s credit, she unabashedly believes that is the case. That’s not to say she doesn’t believe in social mobility (Johnson’s character gets a gigantic promotion to end the film), but if someone can’t relate to your past, they can’t accompany your future.
That’s a complicated place to be! And that’s an uncomfortable conversation for your audience! More so, using three white main characters as her avatars in telling this meditation on the status-fueled dating scene is no mistake. Where Song’s last film, Past Lives, is also pulled from lived-in experiences, it acts as a mirror; Materialists serves as a painting created through observation.
Harry’s world is consistently presented as fantasy with troves of dimly lit fine dining establishments, an Architectural Digest-worthy penthouse, and the ability to book European trips on a whim. John’s grimy reality is presented in the form of asking for a receipt at the bodega, living with roommates in a decrepit but rent-controlled apartment at 37, and the constant reminder of being a failed actor. Lucy has experienced both ends of the spectrum, but what makes it compelling is Song’s (attempted) tenderness.
We experienced that tenderness in Past Lives, and it creeps up in Materialists, sometimes matching Dakota Johnson’s appeal. Some of Johnson’s line readings allow the conversation of “Is she a good actress?” to enter the mind when watching because of how deadpan and matter-of-fact it can be delivered. (There’s a flashback scene where Lucy and John are in the middle of NYC traffic because John doesn’t want to pay a $25 parking fee to get to their anniversary dinner on time, and Lucy screams out, “I don’t want to hate you because you’re poor!”) But there are moments where Johnson’s sincerity shines because it is so matter-of-fact. Once again, there is no room for interpretation; Lucy means it: she doesn’t want to be poor.
I don’t believe love is solely based on money. I don’t believe love is solely based on unattainable attributes that aren’t based in reality. I don’t believe love is solely based on compatibility. What I do believe, however, is that love has transformed in 2025, and what used to matter matters differently.
The starving artist isn’t a sexy, desirable trope anymore.
No one wants to be broke. No one wants to live in a deteriorating apartment with slobs of roommates. No one wants to be looked at as undesirable. But, within the structures of modern society, that’s life for so many people. And it’s not getting better anytime soon.
So when you market a film to appeal to groups of Millenial and Gen-Z women and couples, remind them of their economic lives and then slap them with Lucy talking about dating in the same vernacular that financial analysts talk about spreadsheets in, you’re going to piss a bunch of people off. And trying to convince the audience that Lucy impossibly lives off of an $80K salary in a nice apartment in New York City — be fucking for real.
Yet, as Materialists rides into the sunset of leaving the theaters to ultimately be on streaming in a couple of months, where more discourse about the film will fester on our timelines again, I’m glad the film exists.
Surely flawed, Materialists is a film that I like to think more about what it has to say than watching the actual movie. That’s okay. I’m all in on Celine Song, and you should be too.
🧑🧑🧒 Can you see this with your family?
For the brave, single souls: Watch this with your parents, scroll Hinge at the same time, and take a shot every time they say “you should find someone like that.”
👩❤️💋👨 Can you see this on a date?
I saw this on a date with my wife. The conclusion was that I need to be nicer to myself, so…maybe?
💼 Can you recommend this to a co-worker?
Spread the word about Celine Song, just so more people can see Past Lives.
🎥 What’s a good double feature to watch alongside it?
For the real yearners out there, watch Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️ ⭐️ 1/2 | Rewatchability: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Your guide to movie magic from the comfort of home.
2023 ‧ Comedy/Musical ‧ 1h 33m · Trailer · Streaming On: Hulu
I’ll go right out and say it: I hate musicals. I tend to find them grating, destroying my suspension of disbelief, and just not for me. However, Theater Camp manages to defy all of my preconceived notions about musicals and makes for one of the best comedies of the 2020s.
Made up of a cast that features this generation’s budding comedy go-tos — Molly Gordon, Ayo Edibiri, Jimmy Tatro, and Noah Galvin — Theater Camp focuses on the quirky crew of a struggling summer theater camp that must survive the season (and their founder’s tech-bro son) before the curtain falls for good.
So, what does Theater Camp have to offer?
Endless one-liners that make for a laugh-a-minute
An original musical number that has teens doing cocaine through a giant nose in front of their parents
A Post Malone-inspired audition
You learn what “doping for actors” is
While the mockumentary style has been done plenty of times before, Theater Camp’s balance between the lives of the camp teachers and the experiences of the kids and its camp setting provides a unique enough take on the style. Speaking of the kids, the face acting and reaction shots of the campers give the film its character and warmth because, without them, half of the jokes wouldn’t land.
More comedy than musical, Theater Camp holds up tremendously on rewatch; you’ll be able to find a new joke every time you watch it, especially the songs. The only reason this film isn’t 5 stars for me is because Ben Platt’s character is purposefully annoying, but effectively so that he kind of becomes unbearable.
If you find films like Booksmart, Bottoms, and Blockers to be your kind of comedy, this is perfectly suited for you.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2
Unearthing treasures from the 20th century.
R ‧ 1998 ‧ Thriller/Action ‧ 2h 3m · Trailer · Streaming On: Criterion Channel
When’s the last time you saw a truly sexy film? Something happened at the turn of the century where we got fewer and fewer films that viewed sexiness as a built-in selling point; now, we get the occasional fortunate byproduct of two leads’ chemistry.
At the peak of their powers, Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney starred in Out of Sight, a tale of a when a suave bank robber, Jack Foley, crosses paths with a sharp federal marshal, Karen Sisco, who engage in a cat-and-mouse chase that turns into a seductive game of trust, danger, and blurred moral lines.
From the moment Lopez and Clooney first interact in the film, which occurs as their characters are in the trunk of a car for a cramped meet-cute, the dialogue comes across so naturally. Clooney’s smooth-talking kindness and curiosity are matched by Lopez’s reserved intrigue in one of the best performances of her career.
Out of Sight operates in such harmony that we seldom see with ensemble casts. Featuring the perfect use of every actor that we’ve grown to adore over the last 27 years — Ving Rhames, Viola Davis, Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Catherine Keener, Isaiah Washington, and Luis Guzmán — everyone is working in the same register for the type of sexy crime caper this achieves. And what makes it even better is that it’s fun.
The film takes you across endless locations like prisons, boxing matches, mansions, and gorgeous rooftop bars, where you experience shootouts, prison politics, and heists (not well-planned out heists, to be specific). While the majority of the film is paced well, there are instances where the movie loses a little steam when the film doesn’t focus on Clooney and Lopez.
Out of Sight utilizes freeze frames in such an idiosyncratic way that Soderbergh relies on them to serve as the literal heartbeat of the film, skipping every so often to remind you what it feels like to be dangerous. It’s filmmaking choices like that that make his decades of excellence unsurprising because his ability to appeal to so many sensibilities while sewing artistic flair is singular.
2025 has been a Steven Soderbergh revival for me. I’ve always admired the Writer/Director, but with Presence and Black Bag being some of my favorite films of the year, I wanted to go deeper into his catalogue. If you’re like me and want to get huge laughs, compelling drama, a unique romance story, and tons of action, watch this slick thriller.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“…but if someone can’t relate to your past, they can’t accompany your future.” I like this - the whole film feels like a debate on love which grants it a unique place within the rom-com landscape. I probably found it more satirical than you did!