Materialists
マテリアリスト 結婚の条件
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A New York matchmaker between a rich financier and a broke ex; Song's second film treats dating as an economy.
The film opens in prehistory, with a man slipping a ring made from a flower onto a woman's finger. Then New York. Lucy Mason, a former actor, is a successful matchmaker at an agency called Adore, with nine marriages to her name. She is weary of her clients' impossible standards and cynical about her own chances. At the ninth wedding she talks a tearful bride into going through with it, and meets two men. Harry Castillo, the groom's brother, is a rich financier, tall, single and interested in her; she suggests he sign up as a client instead. John Pitts, working the reception as a cater-waiter, is her ex-boyfriend, a stage actor who is still broke. They split over money.
Harry courts her in expensive restaurants and they become a couple. Then Sophie, a long-standing client whom Lucy set up with a man called Mark, is sexually assaulted by him after the date and sues the agency. Lucy's boss, Violet, sends her on four weeks' leave and forbids contact. Lucy apologises to Sophie anyway, and Sophie calls her a pimp who would hand a difficult client to any man.
Packing for a trip to Iceland, Lucy finds an engagement ring in Harry's luggage, and learns that he paid 200,000 dollars for surgery to lengthen his legs. It does not change her feelings, and that is the trouble: they chose each other because each ticked the other's boxes, and neither is in love. They part kindly. With her flat sublet, Lucy goes to John. They drive upstate on the money from his play, gatecrash a wedding, and she kisses him. He says he has always loved her; she admits that his lack of money once weighed more with her than their love.
A frightened call from Sophie, with Mark outside her door, brings them back to the city. Lucy helps her file for a restraining order, and they make peace. Violet offers Lucy the running of the New York office; Lucy had meant to resign. In Central Park John twists a flower into a ring and proposes, and she says yes. Over the credits, couples collect marriage licences at the city clerk's office, Lucy and John among them.
Starring
Dakota Johnsonas Lucy Mason
A former actor turned top New York matchmaker, who treats love as a set of criteria until her own life tests them.
Lucy Mason’s story
Lucy has made nine marriages at Adore and expects none for herself. On the day she talks a weeping bride into her wedding, she brushes off the groom's rich brother, Harry, and runs into John, the actor she left because he had no money. Harry wins her. Then Sophie, the client she set up with Mark, is sexually assaulted by him and sues; Lucy apologises against orders and is called a pimp. Learning that Harry paid to have his legs lengthened, she sees that they chose each other because each ticked the other's boxes, and they part kindly. Upstate she kisses John and admits that his poverty once weighed more with her than their love. She makes peace with Sophie, is offered the New York office she meant to leave, and says yes to John's flower ring.
Chris Evansas John Pitts
Lucy's ex-boyfriend, a struggling stage actor working as a cater-waiter, who still loves her.
John Pitts’s story
John is serving drinks at the reception when Lucy sees him again, still acting in plays and still broke. They split because she wanted a life he could not pay for. After she leaves Harry, with her flat sublet, she turns up at his door, and he spends the money from his play on a trip upstate. When she kisses him at a wedding they gatecrash, he tells her he has always loved her and pictures a future together, for all his fear that he can never give her the life she wanted. After they help Sophie, he asks her to try again and promises to remind himself every day that he loves her, and to work harder for them both. In Central Park he twists a flower into a ring and proposes, and she says yes.
Pedro Pascalas Harry Castillo
A wealthy financier, brother of a groom Lucy matched, who courts her and seems to be everything her clients ask for.
Harry Castillo’s story
Harry meets Lucy at his brother's wedding, overhears her pitch to the single guests and makes his interest plain. She suggests he become a client instead. He courts her in expensive restaurants, tells her his interest is genuine when she asks why he would choose her, and they become a couple. Packing for Iceland, she finds an engagement ring in his luggage; that night she learns that he paid 200,000 dollars to have his legs lengthened. He defends it and asks whether it changes how she feels. It does not, and Lucy sees that this is the trouble: each ticks the other's boxes, and neither is in love. They part kindly. At the end, Violet tells Lucy that Harry has signed up with Adore as a client.
Zoë Wintersas Sophie
A long-standing client of Lucy's who is sexually assaulted by the man the agency matched her with.
Marin Irelandas Violet
Lucy's boss at the matchmaking agency, who sends her on leave when Sophie sues.
Why it matters
Materialists takes the language of the dating market at its word. Lucy's clients shop for partners by height and money, and the film follows that arithmetic to where it leads: a man who pays to have his legs lengthened so that he will be chosen, a woman handed to a stranger who sexually assaults her, a matchmaker called a pimp by the client she failed. It was Celine Song's second feature after Past Lives, and it reached a wide audience, taking 108 million dollars on a 20 million budget. Critics disagreed about it. Kristen Ghodsee, writing in Jacobin, read it as a picture of courtship under capitalism; NPR's Aisha Harris faulted its handling of the sexual assault. The question it leaves is whether choosing love over money escapes the calculation, or is simply one more way of making it.