Celine Song’s New Rom-Com Is Really a Warning Sign

Now available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, Materialists follows Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a high-end matchmaker who treats relationships as deals and love as leverage. Directed by Past Lives filmmaker Celine Song, the film wears the rom-com label but underneath, it’s a character study of someone who might be the biggest red flag in recent cinema.

The Red Flag Protagonist

Lucy is charming, stylish, and emotionally ruthless. She dumps her boyfriend John (Chris Evans) not because he is unkind, but because he is broke. Later, she refuses to match a billionaire client, Harry (Pedro Pascal), with someone else because she wants him for herself. Lucy’s romantic decisions are dictated by class, wealth, and status. When she reconnects with John years later, he is still struggling. But now that she’s “made it,” she lays down terms: he needs a “real job” to deserve her love.

The Romance That Shouldn’t Work

Despite a clear mismatch in values, the film steers Lucy back toward John in the final act. It is a traditional rom-com ending but one that feels forced and unearned. Lucy’s transformation into someone who chooses “love over luxury” rings false, especially when she still sets conditions for their relationship. Instead of growth, it feels like image control.

Materialists : A Rom-Com That Thinks Like a Capitalist

Song’s film critiques the transactional nature of modern love but never fully challenges it. Viewers especially younger ones have questioned Lucy’s decision to choose a man with less money, while missing the bigger issue, which is Lucy is not choosing love, she is still making a calculated move.

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Materialists may look like a romantic comedy, but it plays like a cautionary tale. The biggest lesson? If you act like Lucy, you will end up alone or worse, with someone you never really respected in the first place.

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