Save This StorySave This StorySave This StorySave This StoryYou're reading The Critic's Notebook , our weekend column in which we explore the most fascinating aspects of the cultural zeitgeist.
At some point in our new Gilded Age, as the United States and the world became more unequal, did Prince Charming disappear? His entourage of yacht-importers made themselves available to our imaginations in new and counterproductive ways, posting on social media, sometimes using their own platforms, their glamour disintegrating with every attempt at ridicule or like. A woman seeking prime fantasy fodder might choose from a sickly crop of tech moguls—Elon Musk, for example, might coax her into bearing one of his “legions” of children via IVF. Or might she prefer to enroll as a member of the British royal family’s train wreck?
The flood of television and literature that has scrutinized the one percent attests to the difficulty of romanticizing the pursuit of wealth, especially when it’s tied to the search for love. In the first season of White Lotus, a journalist who marries a Master of the Universe type is immediately labeled a trophy wife. None of the Roys’ intimate relationships on Legacy survive accusations of opportunism. (Indeed, the show’s most sincere and passionate relationship is between Tom and Greg.) Morally compromised marriages of convenience even become a key element of the Star Wars spinoff Andor: To fund her revolutionary organization, Senator Mon Mothma must set up her daughter with the son of a scheming millionaire.
The Materialists, a new film by Celine Song, is the latest example of this trend. Set in the world of elite dating and wedding services that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the film features Lucy (Dakota Johnson) as a matchmaker at the boutique company Adore, where she caters to the demands of absurdly picky and unreasonable clients who are looking for a designer accessory rather than a connection with another person. Their relationship profiles are laughably precise: a man in his forties wants a mature twenty-seven-year-old; the definition of “suitable” for another man is “no more than a BMI of twenty”; and the least discussed criteria for a woman is a high six-figure salary, at a minimum.
Song’s demystification of what passes for love in the typical romantic comedy is bracing. The genre often dresses Whartonian elbows in gauzy layers of hetero-optimism. But the dates in The Materialists are “risk and pain” experiences, and the weddings are worse. (One of the film’s quiet pleasures is its unsentimental depiction of the ritual’s indignities: Stepford bridesmaids, terrible live bands, tulle, sweat.) When one of Lucy’s clients confesses, mascara running down her cheeks, that the only reason she accepted her future husband’s proposal was to make her sister jealous, Lucy quips knowingly: “He makes you feel valuable,” she confirms. Three-quarters of the film is spent screaming, cathartically, “We are CHEATS!”
The film’s world, with its endlessly customizable options, inspires a desperate perfectionism in Lucy’s clients. But Lucy prides herself on her lack of illusions about love—until the Materialists encounter Prince Charming at a ball (a wedding Lucy has planned). His name is Harry (Pedro Pascal), and he must be a mythical creature, straight out of a fairy tale: He’s practically made of paper. Lucy’s coworkers call men like him—tall, handsome, financially advanced, intelligent, polite—unicorns. When Lucy protests to Harry that he’s out of her league, he politely lists her tangible and intangible assets; then he twirls her around his twelve-million-dollar Tribeca penthouse.
At the same event where Lucy meets Harry, she also reunites with her old boyfriend John (Chris Evans), a sleazy, handsome actor and waiter whom Lucy left because of his financial difficulties. Where Harry and Lucy exchange sparkling banter, John and Lucy communicate tersely, through heated glances. Song seems to be recreating the dynamic from her debut film, Past Lives, in which a woman is caught between her husband (a convenient choice) and her childhood sweetheart (a touchingly romantic but deeply impractical choice). In that film, the heroine stayed with her husband, but The Materialists dreamily rewrites the script: in a development that, alas, feels rushed and emotionally unconvincing, Lucy decides to be with John. Harry embodies a stressed perfection that is always in danger of collapsing or revealing its counterfeit nature; John tells Lucy that he loves her, always has, always will. He can’t help himself. His love is like Netflix: it's seamless, reliable, and perfect for her. After all, the resolution of a love triangle doesn't involve a triumph of wild passion over trinity.
Sourse: newyorker.com
