Author: MariaLina Anagnostidou (@litol_tangerine).
A (very) warm summer night, an open-air cinema filled with Rom-Com enthusiasts, the kind of evening that feels made for popcorn and a comfort/feel-good movie under the stars. Settling in, I expected to be swept off my feet (or at least my chair) by the romance and the unquestionable charm of Papa Pedro.
The story follows Lucy (lovely Dakota Johnson), a professional matchmaker, caught between two complete opposites: Harry (aka our lord and savior Pedro Pascal), extremely rich and perfect in every possible way, and John (the boy with a smile that feels like home, Chris Evans), her sweet but financially struggling ex. But the real tug-of-war isn’t between them– it’s in her. What does she actually want? Love? Comfort? Validation? Or just a life that looks good on paper?
That question runs deeper than the glittery love triangle. Celine Song uses the Rom-Com format almost like a Trojan horse – glossy settings, impossibly good-looking leads, the promise of lighthearted romance – only to smuggle in something much heavier. Underneath the sparkle, Materialists quietly dismantles the genre. Matchmaking here isn’t whimsical; it’s capitalism in action. People become portfolios, compatibility is reduced to checklists and “Return on Romance” is evaluated like Return On Investments. Song doesn’t even pretend to hide the critique: in today’s world, love isn’t found, it’s monetized.
By the end, I didn’t feel uplifted at all. I felt…thoughtful. Because Materialists isn’t really about romance. It’s about the numbness that sneaks in when we live curated lives – behind perfect apartments, dating apps, filtered images. It’s about how ambition and money can blur intimacy, how love becomes a commodity without us even noticing.
So, despite the elaborate marketing strategies and campaigns creating spoilers about a spicy love triangle, the movie ends up hitting you in the gut with a sharp, quietly melancholic study on modern love, dating and loneliness in the sweet chaos of life. And once I let go of what I thought it was meant to be, I found I really liked it – and I hope you do too.
