198 words about The Materialists

Credit A24’s marketing for making me expect a sparkling comedy of manners in the vein of Whit Stillman or (sorry) Woody Allen when instead what The Materialists offers is an incredibly dour and never funny showcase of bad people at their worst. It’s all very New York, and not in the good way. I liked Celine Song’s debut feature Past Lives quite a bit, and I wonder if the difference here is one of performance or writing or both. Between Dakota Johnson’s (let’s call it) affect and the dystopian remove of her matchmaking job, not to mention the wildly tasteless second-act swerve into the aftermath of a sexual assault, I saw glimpses of a movie that was clinical, almost Cronenbergian in its mercilessness. But the characters would need to clash and merge and transform in such a story; here, they explain themselves until they don’t need to anymore, and then the movie is over. If The Materialists is intended as a curdling agent to the concept of the rom-com, I respect its grim, unpleasant dedication. Unfortunately, I think it’s just kind of bad. Pedro Pascal must fire his agent.