Crisp, sharp and seductive, Celine Song\u2019s Materialists plays, at times, like a Sex and the City episode that got binned because it dared to tell too many truths about dating. Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a successful matchmaker catering to wealthy Manhattanites looking for Mr or Miss Right. As cool and precise as her business card, Lucy is like a cross between a therapist and a deal-maker, sizing up her clients for their age, height, weight, income and desirability. <\/p>\n
\u201cMarriage is a business deal and always has been,\u201d she says. But she\u2019s no cynic. Her patter comes salted with enough home truths to usher even the fussiest commitment-phobe down the aisle. Half of them, you imagine, must be a little in love with her. <\/p>\n
Plus she\u2019s played by Dakota Johnson, whose cat-that-got-the-cream purr has never been better deployed than it is here. This is the film Fifty Shades of Grey wanted so desperately to be.<\/p>\n
At a wedding party for one of her successful matches, Lucy meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), a charming, ultra-rich hedge fund manager \u2014 a \u201cunicorn\u201d in her book, a mythical male \u2014 yet he doesn\u2019t want her services. He wants her. Gentle, persistent, Pascal brings a Clark Gable energy to their scenes together, which have an old-world sophistication that recalls the rom-coms of yore. Not one from the Aughts or Nineties, where Kate Hudson spends too long on a tanning bed, but the screwballs of the Thirties and Forties, such as The Philadelphia Story or The Lady Eve, in which love conquers all although only after first boxing clever for 90 minutes on the subjects of class, wealth and power. <\/p>\n
You could hear a pin drop as Lucy and Harry counter and parry across the table: Song cocoons them in a beautiful hush, broken only by the harps of Daniel Pemberton\u2019s score, suggesting intimate ground being broken, or a spell cast. They both feel a little above the dating game \u2014 Lucy because she wrote the rule book and Harry because his wealth more or less overturns the board. <\/p>\n
But there\u2019s another player about to enter: John (Chris Evans), Lucy\u2019s former boyfriend, a struggling actor, now living in Brooklyn, who revives memories of the younger, freer girl Lucy was before she became the Mata Hari of wealthy Manhattanites. What does Lucy really want? Can she tell any more, or has she imbibed too much of her own spiel? <\/p>\n
\u2022 Dakota Johnson on being ignored by Jesse Eisenberg<\/a><\/p>\n In one sense, what follows is one of the oldest plots in the book \u2014 whether to marry for love or money \u2014 although one of the most refreshing things about Song\u2019s movie is its honesty around the subject. \u201cIt\u2019s about value for you,\u201d Lucy says, squaring the circle for a client whom she has matched with a rich fianc\u00e9e, only for them to get cold feet. <\/p>\n Should love be a commodity and relationships just a sound investment? Song, who directed the Oscar-nominated Past Lives, a wonderfully wise film about another love triangle, is not so foolish as to be drawn into a simple answer. The rom-com is not dead, as some say \u2014 people still keep lining up to see them, no matter how often they descend into a series of bridezilla mishaps \u2014 but it is guilty of dishonesty on the subject of money, on the one hand saying it doesn\u2019t matter, while secretly thinking otherwise. The tramp turns out to be a millionaire at the end, anyway, thus saving us our embarrassment. <\/p>\n Some critics have accused Song of a similar disingenuity \u2014 deconstructing rom-com clich\u00e9 only to sucker us with a big \u201clove conquers all\u201d ending \u2014 but I think this misunderstands what she is up to. She\u2019s not deconstructing the rom-com, she\u2019s taking its themes seriously. <\/p>\n Audiences flock to these movies for a reason. I\u2019ve no idea what people lured in by the trailer expecting a Kate Hudson flick will make of it \u2014 maybe that there aren\u2019t enough pratfalls into wedding cakes? \u2014 but fans of sharp dialogue peppered with brutal honesty, and the old-school delights of watching movie stars circle, prowl and pounce on one another like big cats, will feel expertly seduced. And you\u2019ll feel OK about yourself in the morning. Togetherness of an altogether more horrifying kind drives the subtext of Michael Shanks\u2019s guignol horror-comedy, Together, which stars Alison Brie and her real-life husband Dave Franco. They play Millie and Tim, two New Yorkers who have just moved into their dream house upstate, just as their relationship reaches its sell-by date. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure if we love each other or if we\u2019re just used to each other,\u201d Millie says one evening. Then, on an afternoon hiking trip, the two drink from a natural spring that turns their co-dependence into a horrifying physical condition: when they kiss, their lips fuse; after sex, they are unable to decouple, at least without the help of something sharp. <\/p>\n \u2022 The best films of 2025 so far<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWhat are we, running a f***ing three-legged race?\u2019 Tim yells when he wakes up to find Millie\u2019s leg stuck to his. Emergency Metaphor Alert! As an allegory for the cannibalism of coupledom, Shanks\u2019s film hammers home his point about as subtly as Coralie Fargeat\u2019s The Substance did last year, with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley as an ageing actress at war with her younger self. Like Fargeat\u2019s film, it\u2019s never boring \u2014 Shanks piles on the blood, gore and the jump scares \u2014 but it\u2019s all subtext. It\u2019s one of those films that seeks constant reassurance that you\u2019re Getting the Point, but the cleverness empties the film of anything genuinely unsettling. You may get the point, but not the movie. Two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman<\/p>\n Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit thetimes.com\/timesplus<\/a> to find out more<\/p>\n Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments below and follow @timesculture<\/a> to read the latest reviews<\/p>\n
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