It’s not you, Dakota Johnson, it’s me.
Johnson has earned the admiration of many critics, but she and I just don’t seem to connect. Of her films that I’ve seen—Black Mass, Suspiria, The Lost Daughter—I’d forgotten that she was in them. (Even Fifty Shades of Grey is ironically forgettable, given its subject matter.) There’s a blankness to her screen presence that I haven’t been able to fill. I blame myself.
This is unfortunately also true in Materialists. Johnson stars as Lucy, matchmaker for New York City’s elite. Recruiting a potential client—Pedro Pascal’s obscenely wealthy financier—she falls for him instead. But don’t count out her ex—an underemployed actor, played by Chris Evans—who resurfaces around the same time.
Writer-director Celine Song’s follow-up to her achingly romantic 2023 debut, Past Lives, Materialists mostly intrigues in the way it upends any romantic-comedy expectations, bending them toward something more serious. We watch rom-coms, in part, to playfully judge the characters and their choices: Who should she choose? What path should she take to make her decision? With soft cinematography and an unhurried camera—there’s a gorgeous, lengthy fixed shot of Johnson and Pascal on a date, with chefs working quietly in the open kitchen in the background—Song and Past Lives cinematographer Shabier Kirchner encourage contemplation rather than reality-TV evaluation.
Song is a playwright; Evans’ character performs in a production of one of her plays. So it’s no surprise that the dialogue in Materialists is exceptionally smart—somewhere between rom-com repartee and sophisticated, Jane Austen social observation. Pascal and Evans handle it beautifully. What’s more, their skills help keep Johnson afloat (the way they look at her almost convinces you there’s something there). Yet there’s still an absence—a thinness—to her scenes, especially when she’s called to deliver what should be the movie’s hopelessly romantic, declarative statement (which I won’t spoil here).
What’s missing from Johnson can be found in abundance in two brief, supporting turns. Zoe Winters, as one of Lucy’s clients, and Louisa Jacobson, as a skittish bride, knock out their slim scenes by bringing a unique verve and vitality to every second. Their characters pop as interesting, complicated, compelling humans, whose stories we want to hear. If Song had cast one of them in the lead, Materialists might have really been something.
(6/12/2025)
