Materialists

 

Writer/director Celine Song

director on the set with Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans

director with Dakota Johnson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MATERIALISTS       C+                                                                                                           USA  Finland  (117 mi)  2025  d: Celine Song

Marriage is a business deal and it always has been.                                                                    —Lucy (Dakota Johnson)

From the maker of the highly celebrated Past Lives (2023), a smaller, indie-styled film that brought intelligence and a melancholic intimacy to the immigrant experience, yet this is a complete turnaround from that, where you wonder what this director had in mind, opting for a lightweight, mainstream romance comedy that veers from sheer fantasy to darker realities, never really distinguishing itself in any way, with no real likeable characters except a rather unremarkable down-and-out actor whose career is stalled, with the world seemingly passing him by, yet he’s at least identifiable.  The way the film plays out, it’s his very ordinariness that stands out, offering a distinctive appeal that no other character has, as he’s relatable and more openly human.  The other characters, not so much, feeling like they exist in some fantasy world, like an extension of the artificiality of Greta Gerwig’s BARBIE (2023), where love is callously viewed as a business transaction.  The film invests a lot of energy developing that theme, luring us into a world where money makes everything better, where the luxuries of life are equated with success and the American Dream, making the subjects feel like they are finally worthy of love, which is all a rather pretentiously ridiculous entry into the world of romance, like it’s part of a capitalist realization, holding up a mirror to just how shallow we are as a society, with the explosion of social media becoming increasingly calculating and crudely insensitive, extending a social class prejudice that without money love doesn’t exist.  This, of course, only exists in the world of movies, which is notoriously described as a dream machine.  So right from the outset it’s hard to get behind this movie, which isn’t that different from Sean Baker’s Academy Award-winning Anora (2024), which also equated love with money and success.  Once money is removed from the situation, love dies like a house of cards, sending characters into a tailspin of emotional turmoil.  So apparently this is the current fascination of Hollywood, (The Rise of the Anti-Cinderella Story).  What message this conveys about real life is hard to measure, as these feel like exaggerated circumstances that bear no resemblance to the lives we are actually living, unlike the satirical comedies of Roy Andersson, for instance, whose SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000) and YOU, THE LIVING (2007) bring a Kafkaesque absurdity to the forefront of the living, accentuating the absurd and comical elements of simple everyday situations.  But that’s not what this is, as it feels wrapped in a consumerist paradise on display, where monetary value is equated with human value, which is ethically problematic.  But in this case, the title says it all, as it means what it says.  As a playwright, Song has an ear for dialogue, but the relatively bland characters continually utter what sounds like scripted dialogue that feels superficially one-dimensional, where you wonder what really drew the filmmaker to this insipid material, though one should never underestimate the importance of romance.  In a different era any film posing the question whether to marry for love or for money would have been relegated to a Chick flick, a notoriously derogatory term, played for a healthy mix of laughs and sex appeal in Howard Hawks’ star-driven cinematic spectacle of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), or any Judy Holliday movie from the same time period.  While there are some interesting musical choices, like Baby Rose singing a soulful classic at a wedding that has been covered by many jazz and blues artists since the 50’s, That's All YouTube (3:26), Marc Webb’s much more inventive and better acted (500) Days of Summer (2009) blows this out of the water.  Watching people fall in love is a lost art in contemporary movies, as they began to disappear from theaters as soon as people started calling them rom-coms, (Where Have Rom-Coms Gone? (And Our Nostalgic ...), now lost in the rush to produce huge blockbusters, often premiering on streaming platforms. 

Opening in a strange prelude sequence that makes us feel that we’re in another movie, it’s a story of first love in an era of cavemen during the Stone Age, something of a stretch in conceiving an Adam and Eve scenario of the first humans to fall in love, but we’re quickly rushed back into the present as we’re introduced to Lucy (Dakota Johnson, daughter of actor Don Johnson and actress Melanie Griffith), an extremely successful matchmaker for a high-end dating service whose latest couples pairing success is her 9th marriage, receiving applause and adulation from her coworkers at Adore Matchmaking, a Manhattan-based company that strives to bring couples together, suggesting they will find the right partner – for a price.  Dating apps, or in this case matchmaking services, lead to people buying and trading themselves like merchandise, ostensibly designed to make things easier, but the reality is much darker and more complicated.  Shot on 35mm by Shabier Kirchner, who also shot her earlier film, this bears some resemblance to Elizabeth Lo’s Chinese documentary Mistress Dispeller (2024), as the director draws from personal experience working for 6 months as a professional matchmaker a decade ago for exclusively affluent people in order to fund her writing career, but this feels more fantasy based, as everything revolves around money, suggesting love can be bought and customized, with clients making ridiculously precise, superficial specifications of exactly what they are looking for, like picking out a house or a piece of furniture.  At the wedding of her latest success story, she repeats the mantra, “Who our partner is determines our whole life,” before meeting the brother of the groom, Harry (Pedro Pascal), an extravagantly wealthy financial capitalist who represents the pinnacle of success, the ultimate “catch,” described in the business as a unicorn, supposedly everything any woman could dream of, intelligent, tall, handsome, and filthy rich, checking all the boxes, as they say.  While he overhears her sales pitch while passing out business cards, he expresses a genuine interest in meeting her, but she defers, suggesting he pursue romantic prospects through Adore, hoping he will find the perfect match.  While they are flirting, however, in something of a comical surprise, Lucy runs into her more disheveled ex-boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), working as a server at the wedding, bringing her drink of choice, where it’s clear they have a history together.  A struggling actor, he’s looking for extra income, as we quickly learn that their relationship fizzled due to money concerns when both were struggling actors, a dream he has continued to pursue, though he still doesn’t have a manager, won’t take commercial jobs, yet is upset with the way his life has turned out.   In stark contrast is another one of Lucy’s long-time clients, Sophie (Zoë Winters), who has repeatedly struck out in the dating game, becoming a seemingly hopeless case, with Adore, supposedly experts in achieving that perfect match, discovering it’s very difficult to find the man of her dreams, privately asserting “There’s no place in the market for her.”  When Lucy sets her up with that perfect date, he ends up sexually assaulting her in what amounts to date rape, a disastrous turn of events that precipitates a lawsuit against the company, where it’s clear these are lives that are being toyed with.  Despite the background checks and aligning all the perfect algorithms, occasionally a dark and sinister character slips through, inflicting enormous damage, as Sophie’s self-esteem plummets, leaving her emotionally and psychologically devastated, feeling permanently scarred, yet the company doesn’t like to talk about failures, as it’s all about conveying success to a public that needs to believe in dreams.  What’s clear at the outset is how the company views relationships as assets and liabilities, suggesting dating is a calculated risk, like a financial investment, so what this film really lacks is the personal intimacy created in Song’s earlier film.  

With that in mind, Lucy starts dating Harry on her own, where, exactly like Anora, she’s quickly won over by the massive scale of his financial success, living in a $12 million dollar Tribeca penthouse while leading an immensely privileged lifestyle, showing impeccable taste, regularly taking her to all the upscale expensive restaurants that most people can only afford on special occasions, becoming a whirlwind affair of glamor and indulgence, just like the man of her dreams.  While everything points to that perfect Prince Charming Hollywood scenario playing out before our eyes, the director suddenly subverts those expectations, pulling the rug out from under us and chooses to go in a different direction, with the film getting messier and more complicated, as it turns out she doesn’t really love her perfect match, while he himself may be incapable of love, refusing to allow himself to be exposed to that degree of emotional vulnerability.  It’s all about success, pressing the right buttons, making all the right decisions to maintain his quality of life, which he values more than anything else, even her.  While this may come as something as a surprise, the real surprise was seeing walkouts when viewers were disappointed to discover this was not a happily-ever-after storybook ending, suggesting viewer expectation plays a large role in this film, as it doesn’t follow the script, veering off on an unexpected tangent, as she breaks up with Harry, only to find herself evaluating her own life, spending more time with John, who lives that typical working class life where daily frustrations play into what he’s constantly forced to deal with, yet he’s maintained a certain trust with Lucy even after their breakup, never actually falling out of love with her, offering a sympathetic ear whenever she needs it.  As fate would have it, she sublets her apartment for a week as she was planning to be whisked off to Iceland with Harry before they amicably broke things off, leaving her stranded, without a place to stay, but John’s multiple roommates live in apartment squalor, so that’s not really an option, instead they head on an upstate road excursion together in his beat-up Volvo, where they spontaneously crash a wedding staged at an outdoor countryside barn, suddenly taking themselves more seriously, finally asking those existential questions, like are they really back together again.  In the end, not sure it actually matters, as the soulless characters display no actual chemistry onscreen and are simply not compelling enough for us to care, where it all seems to play out in a land of make believe, where the materialistic view of life is just as much of a scam as the Prince Charming view of romance, with marriage viewed as a means to climb the social ladder, exactly as it was back in the days of Jane Austen novels.  On the day before the film release, the director provided a “movie syllabus” list of films that influenced the making of the film, many of which go back to the 80’s and 90’s, most likely films the director grew up watching, Materialists movie syllabus via Celine - A24 - X, but this feels more like the escapist television series Sex and the City than any of those referenced films, which conspicuously leaves out Susan Sandler’s play turned into her own film adaptation in Joan Micklin Silver’s CROSSING DELANCEY (1988), where it would be easy to imagine Kate Hudson, Julia Roberts, Meg Ryan, or Rachel McAdams inhabiting this role with similar results, though it does attempt to get under the surface.  Arguably the best scene is the closing credits sequence, a long, well-choreographed final shot that exudes personality and diversity, topped off by a wonderfully quirky John Prine song, originally written for Billy Bob Thornton’s DADDY AND THEM (2001), but featuring a superb rendition with Iris DeMent, John Prine and Iris DeMent - In Spite of Ourselves (Live From ... YouTube (5:04). 

Anora

 

Writer/director Sean Baker

The director on the set

actress Mikey Madison

actors Yura Borisov and Mark Eidelstein

ANORA            C+                                                                                                                       USA  (139 mi)  2024 ‘Scope  d: Sean Baker

Today this could be                                                                                                                      The greatest day of our lives                                                                                                   Before it all ends                                                                                                                        Before we run out of time                                                                                                               Stay close to me                                                                                                                      Watch the world come alive tonight…

—released in 2008, Take That - Greatest Day (Single) YouTube (3:56)

A film about the putrid stench of toxic male patriarchy in both America and Russia, the two superpowers dominating the global landscape, told through an unlikely subject, a young female exotic dancer who thinks she’s hit the jackpot, the realization of all her dreams, only for that dream to be ruthlessly snatched away from her, like ripping her heart out.  In the 1950’s, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall all used their external charms to lure a rich husband in Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) or Jean Negulesco’s HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953), an era when it was common for men to support women through marriage, a concept this film subverts, yet respectfully pays homage to at the same time, where the dream is the same.  Reminiscent of the works of Ernst Lubitsch or Billy Wilder, it’s told in a screwball comic manner with rapid-fire pacing and streams of profanity-laced dialogue, a horribly ugly and grotesque display of raw, unfettered power and how easily power corrupts, with a sweeping landscape of Brighton Beach, also known as “Little Odessa” due its tight-knit Russian and Eastern European communities, where this delves into moneyed pockets of Russian culture, as seen through American eyes.  What sets this apart is the lack of any identifiable characters, where it’s hard to empathize with people you don’t really care about, and this is a lengthy odyssey into narcissistic people who don’t really give a shit about anyone else but themselves, becoming a hedonistic journey into a false paradise, as epitomized by Sin City, Las Vegas, and then having to deal with the wretched consequences that literally becomes a hell on earth.  From the maker of Starlet (2012) and The Florida Project (2017), Baker’s characters believe in an illusory American Dream that has abandoned them a long time ago, exposing the underside of that façade, where failure and social upheaval are intrinsically linked to his working class aesthetic, creating films free of any superficialities that accentuate those on the lower rung of the economic ladder, providing insights into the lives of people who live on the edge of urban spaces, addressing issues of social injustice, poverty, and the consequences of economic instability without romanticizing or condemning his figures, continually finding new ways to get audiences to empathize with people they may otherwise disregard.  All the hype surrounding this film, coming after winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes (where he dedicated the award to “all sex workers, past, present, and future”), with a jury led by Greta Gerwig, tends to send all the wrong messages, as this is an obnoxious expression of unprecedented arrogance on display, where the bullying behavior is simply abominable, which is tragic enough, yet ugliness and an unending sadness permeates through every frame of this film, though it’s couched in wild exhibitionist humor, where the grotesque, Ruben Östlund-like satiric exaggeration seems to be an accelerant, like starting a fire you can’t put out.  For those who seem to think this audacious screamfest is among the best films of the year, and there are many, it only makes you wonder what kind of abusive crap they’re used to seeing, where theaters are just filled with nearly unwatchable movies these days, spewed with incessant violence that is massively inflicted upon viewers, becoming a new desensitized normal in today’s society.       

Opening with a five-minute sequence set in a New York strip club with a remix of the British boy band Take That from the 90’s blaring on the soundtrack, Take That ft. Calum Scott - Greatest Day (Robin Schulz ... YouTube (2:43), offering a sarcastically sunny and hopeful vibe, as Ani (Mikey Madison) works the room, flirting with guests and leading them to the VIP area at the back to perform private lap dances, moments filled with gratuitous sex, nudity, and other party activities.  Basically this boils down to a long hip hop music video filled with drugs, booze, flashy cars, and naked women, shot by Drew Daniels on 35mm, accentuating bright neon colors, like something we’ve already seen in Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), a fast track lifestyle that has an instantaneous appeal, but quickly wears out, attracting a wealthy segment of society that drops $100 dollar bills like there’s no tomorrow.  In the private rooms, Ani holds all the power, no matter how affluent the customer is, though the moment she leaves the club, the power dynamic flips on its head and the status quo is restored.  You’d think the powerhouse, once-in-a-lifetime performance by unheralded actress Mikey Madison, who had a bit part before being unceremoniously killed off in Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019), might be the saving grace of this film, from the conspicuous Brooklyn accent, a variation of Marisa Tomei in MY COUSIN VINNY (1992), to uncontrolled outbursts of rage, to completely vulnerable moments, where real intimacy is perhaps too painful for her, which may be why she has chosen a profession that allows her to safely keep her distance.  The actress learned to speak Russian and literally spent months visiting Brighton Beach sex clubs while preparing for this role, while also drawing upon Andrea Werhun’s book Modern Whore: A Memoir, a collection of original stories inspired by the author’s adventures in the sex industry, but it’s not nearly enough, as it’s clear from the start that everything is a mirage, that it’s all a lie, so it’s really no secret where this film is heading, taking us into a dumpsterfire where there is no escape, as you’re going to get burned.  Seemingly cut from the same cloth as the Safdie brothers Good Time (2017) or Uncut Gems (2019), dysfunctional family crime dramas with a frenetic pace to them, and while it’s an exhilarating ride, it lacks their sense of joyous adventure, existing in a place where the boundaries between delusion and reality seem to be blurred, leaving you emotionally drained and empty afterwards, sorry you ever treaded into this territory.  There are no subtleties and no time for tenderness, instead it’s a brash expression of unending selfishness, where the horror isn’t sexual violence, or even the dread of danger lurking in the dark, it’s the baffling naïveté of immaturity that holds such a central position, like a weight over everyone’s heads.  As if awakened from a fever dream of spending one’s last night on earth before it explodes, this is a story where everything you once knew is gone in an instant, leaving you wandering the ends of the universe alone, stuck in a purgatory of what might have been, where it’s not only bitter, but bittersweet.  This is not the prettified, sugar-sweet fairy tale of Julia Roberts in Garry Marshall’s PRETTY WOMAN (1990), as there’s nothing funny about the gutless moral vacuousness and sweeping social vilification that is the heart of this film, where there is such an obsessional yearning for prosperity, with all the safety and comfort that brings, yet the raw, explosive style of uninhibited energy on display hides the inevitable reality that awaits us in this nihilistic tragicomedy, taking us down a road to nowhere where all that’s left is unending bleakness and emotional despair.  

Ani is a brashly confident, fiercely independent Russian-speaking stripper who is often sent to entertain high-rolling Russian clientele, which is where she meets Vanya (Mark Eidelstein), an impetuous son of a Russian oligarch billionaire, quickly getting caught up in a whirlwind affair, Feeling the Chemistry in New ANORA Clip with Mikey ... YouTube (4:27), where the kid is a party animal that surrounds himself with beautiful girls, vaping drugs, and nonstop alcohol, living in abundance without ever taking responsibility, yet when she’s invited to a private appointment at his opulent home, a full-windowed waterfront mansion with maid service and private security, she can’t help but be impressed, ANORA (2024) Clip | Sean Baker, Mikey Madison YouTube (54 seconds), thinking this is a window into a whole new world.  When he pays her $15,000 to be his exclusive girlfriend for a week, they run off to Las Vegas where they actually get married, as she’s infatuated by the luxuriousness of his accommodations and his flashy lifestyle, Anora | Clip | NYFF62 YouTube (1:14), believing that’s her ticket out of the cheap and sordid lifestyle she’s been living.  When word in Russia gets out through social media that he’s gotten married, his parents send in the cavalry to intervene, with a bunch of Armenian goons quickly putting the kibosh on these shenanigans, blowing a hole in their fantasy world, suddenly forced to deal with unpleasant people who take offense by her presence, immediately assuming she’s contaminated his life, viewed simply as a scheming whore that must immediately be sent packing and the marriage annulled.  It’s a startling shift in tone, leading to a stream of organized chaos, a mix of calamity and catastrophe, utilizing slapstick comedy that borders on the ridiculous, yet the cruel and demeaning treatment of Ani is a given, as she’s simply viewed as a completely disposable nobody, dealing with her in the same manner as all their other problems, where they agree to pay her off to go away.  But she doesn’t do so willingly, becoming a huge pain in the ass for this family, hell-bent on fire and fury, so when Vanya bails on her and runs away at the first sign of trouble, she’s forced to deal with them all on her own, and while she puts up a struggle of epic proportions, displaying a surprising tenacity, she is steamrolled by the power they command, as highly influential people are on their payroll, while Ani has no one.  Basically treated like shit, she’s eventually forced to capitulate to the inevitable reality that she can’t win this battle of class privilege, as the moneyed interests are just too much, though there are absurd interactions, continuous screaming, and somewhat exaggerated fights, where the real movie is that viewers can see her in a way no one else does, as she’s unequivocally human, literally stripped of her humanity, yet the overall framework of the film is a zany fast-talking comedy until it slows down for a quietly memorable final sequence blanketed under a fresh coat of snow.  The film takes its cue from Fellini’s NIGHTS OF CABIRIA (1957), where a sex worker and hopeless romantic keeps picking the worst kind of men to get attached to, pouring her hopes and dreams into a guy, only to come to the slow realization that he’s a pathetic disappointment.  The unending bleakness of this film is unmistakable, despite the roller coaster ride of ever-shifting emotions, feeling one-dimensional, however, as it’s not particularly innovative and is actually quite predictable over a lengthy running time, never probing beneath the surface or wavering from the central theme that an incessantly exploited Ani is left lost and alone.