Thoughts on The Materialists
By Sergio C. Muñoz at Intelatin, LLC
*SPOILER ALERTS ACROSS THE BOARD. *
The protagonist for this film is, Lucy. She works as a matchmaker for an elite matchmaking service in New York City. At the beginning of the film, it feels like she is locked-in and good at her job.
From what the film tells us, one of the ways to measure success in this world of matchmaking is if the couples that you match begin to have milestones, like, 2nd date; anniversary, wedding, child, etc… All of this makes sense and what becomes intriguing in this part of the film is that everybody has a “profile.” This “profile” can supposedly make or break you in the contemporary dating world.
Now, as opposed to criticizing any aspect of the “profile” as shallow or superficial, what it did for me was it forced me to imagine my “profile” and if I were dating, the “profile” of the person that I would be searching for as a match. I told my wife after the fact that if I were dating again, and I wanted to find a match, here is what I would be looking for:
Petite
Suntan
Age Range: Flexible
Non-Negotiable: I do not want any more of my own children in the world and I currently have one young child. How this individual interacts with my child is very important. If she has a child of her own, the same applies for how I interact with her children.
Ethnicities: Flexible but prefer Spanish speaking; Portuguese speaking; Italian speaking or Japanese speaking. Willing to explore a majority of other ethnicities but there are some that I won’t enjoy. Also, a monolingual gringa is out of the question. My ideal match is Liziqi although, I am certain that I am not her ideal match. I believe she is way more evolved than I am.
Income: This one is more complicated if we are sharing a joint bank account. This one would actually require legal consultation and documentation.
Preferences: Being comfortable and fluent in Mexican culture. Even if she isn’t Mexican per se, I need her to be able to be happy in Mexico because at some point in the near future, I will be living there.
Religion: Not really flexible here. I think Atheist or Buddhist would be the best choices but if the match were ultra religious in any direction, it could easily turn into a non-negotiable.
Now, what is most interesting to me about all of this is that I did not have any problems dating when I was single but I met my wife when I was 35 years old and fortunately for me, I met her at a moment in my life when I was ready to stop dating and settle down. What appealed to me the most about my wife … before I spoke to her or considered her a potential match for me …. besides her looks …. was that she was from Veracruz. Just being from Veracruz was, for me, the equivalent to hitting the lottery. I cannot explain this with mathematics. It was just an ideal brand for a woman for me.
So, Lucy is out qualifying both sides of the ledger. On the surface, she is at a high point in her career when she meets the character of Harry. He is rich, attractive, tall and according to Lucy, he is a unicorn. She would like to work with him as a matchmaker but Harry has already done his own math and he would simply prefer to be with Lucy. He sets about courting her and all the bait he uses is textbook luxury lifestyle chum:
$12M penthouse apartment
Maybach with chauffeur
Tasting menus at high profile restaurants
Obviously, she succumbs to the bait and they begin to have a relationship. I love this premise of what happens when you first make a desirable match like in 9 1/2 Weeks; Unfaithful; At First Sight; The Lover; Prime; Danzón; Really Love; Brown Sugar; Past Lives; etc… But the sexiness in this film is so beyond tame that I would describe it as non-existent. And it is this sex factor in the film that kills its momentum. As the audience, we aren’t sure if its because Lucy is too frigid or if Harry is too polite, but either way, they don’t set off any sparks.
Before the film takes two unexpected twists, one completely credulous, the other shockingly not, there is a scene in Act 2 that I believe is an incredible scene. Worth the price of the film alone.
In this scene, Lucy and Harry have been out several times and Harry seems to have decided intellectually that Lucy is right for him. They are in a high-end open kitchen restaurant. The shot is kinda long distance and the restaurant is dark so its hard to make out details. In this scene, Lucy admits to him with complete vulnerability that she is not his equal and that he can do better. She lists all of the reasons for why she thinks that they are an off-pairing. He listens politely and then begins his counter argument. In it, the film finds its thesis: Perceived Value vs Actual Value. Harry communicates the value that he thinks Lucy brings to his life and in the moment, she chooses to bathe in the counter argument. Intellectually, she accepts that she might be ok for Mr Big. - - - If the film had opened with this scene and then worked its heart out to support this scene, it would have been a cinematic masterpiece.
Instead, the film loses itself several times throughout the narrative. The dialogue loses itself several times. The casting loses itself several times. In an ode to Nora Ephron and When Harry Met Sally, the front facing interview style segments that come up occasionally throughout the film jerk us out of the fairy tale. It ends up feeling clumsy upon first viewing.
The two sidecars in the film, not to mention the unsavory blandness of the third primary character who is so forgettable that I forgot his name but am sure that its the most generic name on Planet Earth, distract from the thesis of the film but provide for the holy shit moments when you think that the writer /director, Celine Song, is making a worthwhile statement about how fake New York society is. I don’t doubt it but I also just don’t care. If those sidecars are what the movie is about then show me a thoughtful movie about those sidecars. In the credulous one that is supposed to hit you the hardest, the actress tries to steal the movie by actually showing Lucy what it feels like to have real emotion. Lucy has to do her best to show real emotion back and to nobody’s surprise, it falls very flat. Lucy just doesn’t really care.
What made Celine Song’s debut film, Past Lives, so incredibly poignant and beautiful was the character and performance of the protagonist, Nora. The audience gets completely invested in her story. I have never been as emotionally impacted in contemporary cinema as I was in the last scene of Past Lives. I was actually winded by the actress playing Nora. Even when the film ends, we want to know more about, Nora. In Song’s sophomore film, The Materialists, I personally was not interested in knowing anymore about Lucy’s life. It looked destined to be boring and lifeless.
#A24 #TheMaterialists #Film #PedroPascal #Intelatin