The best romantic comedies in and of themselves become timeless bibles of life.
Woody Allen’s Annie Hall didn’t just speak to the 1970s single folk, but also to any teenager in a future era going through heartbreak. Ditto for 2009’s (500) Days of Summer: It may have been about millennials and for millennials, but it carried themes about the pursuit of love to which any fortysomething could relate.
And so, we arrive at Celine Song‘s Materialists, which is a deconstruction of the singledom that’s absolutely now, steeped in its social media marketability and posh wants, but at the end of the day it’s the raw, shabby, sincere form of love that wins out. In turning the rom-com on its head (though Jane Austen’s Emma does come to mind), Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a high-end matchmaker in NYC who contends with her clients’ lofty wants in a mate. Lucy, who knows everything there is about marketability in the game of courtship, falls for the ultimate unicorn in Pedro Pascal’s ultimate rich dude, Harry. But then Lucy’s ex, John (an amazing, no-holds-barred Chris Evans) reenters the picture. He doesn’t have Harry’s wallet, but, man, he knows what makes Lucy tick (beer and soda).
Before she was an Oscar-nominated filmmaker thanks to Past Lives, Song was a matchmaker 10 years ago.
“I learned more about people in those six months, than in any other part of my life,” she tells us today on the Crew Call podcast.
Though she doesn’t consider herself an expert on love, you can’t deny her knowledge. Move over, Leo Buscaglia.
“Love is a completely mysterious thing that we don’t have a solution for,” says Song about the difference between dating and finding the love of your life.
“Love is something that humbles us, that ask us to surrender, it’s the one that asks us to be our purist, most simple self,” she adds. “When love is offered to you, all you can say is ‘deal.’ You can say, ‘Yes, deal. I want this love in my life.’ “
Materialists opens this Friday via A24.
