ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Celine Song follows up her Oscar-nominated “Past Lives” with “Materialists,” a new romantic drama about a professional matchmaker, her wealthy suitor and a lovable ex.

“MATERIALISTS” (2025, 117 min., directed by Celine Song)

If I can say one thing for sure about “Materialists,” it’s that Celine Song has completely won me over with her Sad Romantics in New York City filmmaking style. The “Past Lives” director concretizes the cinematic language of her breakout movie with her latest effort. If you loved her first film, you’re in luck. There’s a lot of the same DNA in her second. Once again, romantic outdoor string lights, New York sidewalk confrontations, pivotal scenes between the bedsheets proliferate the screen. Both sets of Song’s characters are melancholic artists with a penchant for low-lit restaurant speeches and cluttered apartment conflicts. These movies have a lot in common.

Despite their superficial similarities, “Past Lives” is a film about the aching ambiguities of romance, while “Materialists” casts uncertainty aside with its bold statement on love.

The movie has a traditional romantic drama set-up: Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a New York matchmaker celebrating her ninth successful pairing. At the subsequent wedding, she meets Harry, a wealthy, charming bachelor played by Pedro Pascal, and runs into John, her ex-boyfriend, unsuccessful actor and wedding caterer, played by Chris Evans. While the rom-com formula would have Lucy torn between these two men, Lucy has a formula of her own. She believes in the mathematical construction of relationships.

“Marriage is a business deal,” she says.

Who checks how many of whose boxes? Which match is wealthiest? How tall are they? These are the questions Lucy concerns herself with, a love connection be damned. Thanks to her rubric, Pascal and Evans aren’t pitted against each other. Lucy has already played their pros and cons out in her algorithm.

A significant portion of the film is set in Lucy’s workplace, particularly around her work with Sophie, a hard-to-match client played by Zoe Winters. After a date Lucy sets up for Zoe goes horribly wrong, Lucy is thrown into a tailspin. Song makes an effective statement about the dangers of judging a person on their CV alone, but ironically, I think that plot thread worked better on paper than in practice. Winters turns in a gut-wrenching performance, but as the story progresses, her character’s pain serves as fodder for Lucy’s character growth. It’s a decision I would have swiped left on in the editing room.

Song has a background as a playwright – easter egg hunters, keep an eye out for one of her plays in the background – and excels at tasking her characters with emotional monologues. Unlike your usual rom-com romp, “Materialists” plays scenes straight and action-free, relying on conversation to drive the drama. Between the witticisms and pithy observations of modern dating life, the bulk of those conversations are largely one-note. The central idea of the film is exposed after Lucy, John and Harry spend the entire first half debating romantic chemistry versus financial security. The stakes of the film are set in tax brackets. While the superficiality is the point – it’s in the name, after all – after a while, it gave otherwise brilliant dinner scenes an artificial aftertaste.

That isn’t to fault the performances of Pascal, Evans or Johnson, all three of which are rich in charisma, if not equals in their checking accounts.

Johnson, famous for her cool, aloof movie star persona, is well-deployed here. Lucy is anxious to detach emotion from her relationships and Johnson is able to play herself until the moments where tears or shouts absolutely have to well up.

Pascal became famous for his paternal roles on “The Last of Us” and “The Mandalorian,” a quality soon to be revisited in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” and he has a sort of sugar daddy sensibility in this film. Harry is warm and unpretentious, but Pascal does a great job at holding Lucy and the audience at a distance nonetheless.

Evans is the best of the three as a harried, handsome loser. When John makes mistakes, Evans sells it. He’s incredibly convincing as a guy who just can’t quite figure everything out. He’s charming, but says the wrong thing. He’s beautiful, but his apartment is disgusting. Evans brings a depth and a heat to John that burns through Johnson’s cool to some serious sparks.

Like the relationships it portrays, “Materialists” is messy. It’s not as perfectly poised as “Past Lives” or as fun as your favorite rom-com, but for all its faults, it’s a new Celine Song movie. I don’t need a matchmaker to tell me I’m already in love with her films.

Rating: 3/5