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If you watch the trailer for Materialists it looks like a typical, possibly even corny, romance movie about a woman who has to choose between two guys; a rich newcomer and her down on his luck ex who has recently come back into her life. It very much appears to be kind of thing that Nancy Meyers or Nicolas Sparks might have given us twenty years ago, or maybe Colleen Hoover now. In fact it doesn’t seem a million miles away from Hoover’s It Ends With Us from last year. 

Materialists doesn’t come from any of those writers though; it is the second film from Celine Song and anyone who saw her celebrated, Oscar nominated debut Past Lives will know to expect more. 

What is actually so smart about Materialists is that it is both what is promised by the trailer and by the reputation of its writer/director; it is the love triangle romance with the ‘who will she pick?’ element but it also has, as I (and to be fair the poster strap line) say, more. It Ends With Us had parts to the story not indicated by in publicity as well but unlike that movie, this brings in an examination of modern dating and concepts of love rather than a surprising subplot that wrestles with the tone of what has come before. Materialists is a very solid piece of work in terms of how it holds together and it definitely keeps you guessing in a way you’d not suspect from that marketing. 

In some respects Song is following on from Nora Ephron in the way her work deals with the nature of relationships and how they are complicated by the humans involved but what she is doing is different to this. She brings the same insight and honesty but her writing, very lightly but quite distinctly, brings a greater analysis. Working with Song the central cast are all at their best and indeed Dakota Johnson shows here herself as worthy successor to Meg Ryan who most shone in Ephron’s films and cornered the market in sophisticated romcoms generally in the late 80s and early 90s. With the right director Johnson can be excellent, as she was in The Lost Daughter for Maggie Gyllenhaal and for Luca Guadagnino in A Bigger Splash (and to a lesser extent Susperia) and I hope with this she can move right away from things like Madame Web and properly leave Fifty Shades behind (although she was probably the best thing in that). Appropriately, the other person she is reminiscent of here is her mother Melanie Griffith as Tess in Working Girl, and she is cementing and earning her legend as the third generation of Hollywood royalty. 

Of course, as well as the erstwhile Madame Web we also get Mr. Fantastic and Captain America and Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans are also equally good here with characters who show more depth and vulnerability than you’d think from that trailer. It is interesting that Pascal’s age plays a part in this movie, whereas generally it doesn’t too. Older men dating younger women is one of the things that is highlighted here so the fact that he is a decade and a half Johnson’s senior is relevant rather than ignored. On the surface Materialists does feel a little too heteronormative but again you quickly see past this as straight masculinity is another things under the microscope here. 

So anyone wanting this to be a worthy follow up to Past Lives is going to enjoy it. In many ways it works as a companion piece to Song’s first movie as it examines some similar themes. I think anyone who has come to this off the back of that misleading promo is also going to appreciate it though. There is nothing here that will disappoint audiences just wanting a good romance and I think everyone will value the sophistication and intelligence that comes along with it. For that reason, whether it was designed to get bums on seats or otherwise, the trailer is probably just what it needed to be.