Ryan McNeil
How each one of us approaches relationships can be very telling. Sometimes we go seeking love, and sometimes love just finds us. Some of us want the violins and butterflies while others want lifestyle and security.
Both approaches to a relationship are valid, but when they come together it makes for a bit of a mess.
Life goes that way sometimes; so too does cinema.
MATERIALISTS is the story of Lucy (Dakota Johnson). Lucy is a Manhattan matchmaker who deals with very exclusive clientele. Everyone who hires her is very beautiful and very rich. They know what they want (or at least they think they know) – how tall, how young, how smart, how rich. They are tired of dating and want relationships.
Lucy and her firm of yentas take emotion out of the equation and find people for each client who make sense on-paper; people who “check every box”.
At the wedding of two such clients, Lucy meets Harry (Pedro Pascal) who is the best man and brother of the groom. Smart, handsome, and rich – he is what Lucy calls “a unicorn”. He is the sort of man the women she works for would fight to meet, but in this moment he is only interested in meeting Lucy.
Interrupting this meet-cute is John (Chris Evans) : a struggling actor who waits tables and just so happens to be Lucy’s ex. John is happy to see Lucy again after a long time apart, but is also polite enough not to completely take her attention away from Harry and make the moment about him. Soon enough, the two will catch-up, and find a respectful way to be a part of each-other’s lives again.
What then unfolds is less a love triangle, and more three people reckoning with what’s most important to them in life and love from moment-to-moment.
Almost exactly halfway through MATERIALISTS, there is a moment of crisis for Lucy (I don’t dare elaborate further). Her reaction to this crisis – both in the immediate and in its aftermath – is the audience test for this story. Some may reject the entire plot point; some (like me) may not entirely buy what Lucy does next.
What’s fascinating is that the film almost seems to know that the audience will have trouble with this moment…and it includes it anyway as a test. It’s a test over what we think and what we feel in response.
At its core, MATERIALISTS is a struggle between the head and the heart. Which wins and which seems like it should win is left entirely up to us.
We begin with the head – the part of us that should be logical and rational. It’s the part of us that should be able to see what makes for a comfortable life – maybe even a good life – and understand what can bring us there. To listen to Lucy talk about how she matches people (and what she seeks for herself) it is crystal clear that she is leading with her head.
If there is ever a doubt, one need only watch the way she and Harry speak when they are on the most-serious of their several dates. She spells out to him, point by point, what he has to offer a relationship and even how it shouldn’t be a relationship with her (she believes he can do better).
Harry, also leading with his head, listens patiently as if listening to a legal rebuttal. His counterpoint to her will be equally measured, logical, and thoughtful.
Their body language, their words, their tone – it’s all reserved but deeply engaged while the room around them slips away. They are the only two people in the world in this moment…exchanging these thoughts.
The counterpoint to this moment comes later when Lucy and John take stock during a stolen moment that is a rustic mess of feelings. Their surroundings aren’t as posh, their clothes far less tailored. They are speaking less about thoughts for the present and more about feelings from the past…and future.
The words are clumsier, the posture is unsure, the endgame a complete muddy mystery.
In this moment, both John and Lucy are speaking from the heart in a tone less legal rebuttal and more “Why I believe in fairies”. It’s a moment that is sad and vulnerable; unsure both of what it thinks and what it knows.
The head and the heart are both given the floor to state their case – the judgement is left to us.
Walking away from MATERIALISTS, I’m reminded of the end of THE GRADUATE; when Ben Braddock and Lorraine Robinson flee from her wedding and gleefully laugh sitting at the back of a city bus…all before the camera holds on them and the ton of bricks hits them.
MATERIALISTS puts us in that position constantly. We followed the smart moves and landed someone who can provide, but there’s a distinct lack of warmth. Or its the opposite, we lead with our heart and fell deliriously in love only to find ourselves with two roommates and no hot water on Tuesdays.
What the fuck did we just do?
This is the reality of adult relationships – a constant tug of war between the head and the heart.
In this story, act one is littered with people making it clear what they need in life (money, status, looks, etc), almost to the point of exhaustion. It’s enough to turn an audience off…until you admit that some part of you understands it logically. It’s math, and like math it adds up. It might not be the way you live and love, but undeniably you have to admit that one-plus-one-equals-two.
In act two, we turn to what people want in life – what they feel and what they want to feel in return. Here’s where things get messy, illogical, and maybe even impossible. Yeah, that person makes you smile…but will that be enough when you’re still living in a dump at age 35? Sure, they make your tummy flutter, but is fluttering going to cancel out owning a car you can’t even afford to drive.
Maybe it will…maybe it won’t. So it goes, the constant battle between the heart and the head.
Like life and like love, MATERIALISTS is messy. Handsome, thoughtful, and well-crafted, it is a Jackson Pollock painting of thoughts and feelings. Maybe one will go with it and maybe they won’t – its success comes down to what each audience member thinks …and feels.
