The saga of seeing the movie Materialists began in late June. I went to see Sinners at the Madison Theatre, but my wife opted to see something presumably less intense, which started and ended a few minutes after my choice. I then went to vote at the nearby Primary Day voting site and came back.
When the theater door for Materialists opened, I waited more than five minutes before calling out to her. Yes, she was in there, and she came out, talking to two women, one of whom she vaguely had met before, still talking about the significance of the film they had just seen.
A week or so later, my wife and I went to the Spectrum 8 Theater in Albany. She was willing to see Materialists again, which is quite unusual. I saw and liked it, but I was having a dreadful time figuring out how to write about it. A part of it may have to do with personal biography.
Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is an excellent matchmaker at an upscale company. She is practically a human dating app. Nine of her matches led couples to the altar. She views relationships like transactions and uses that strategy to calm a skittish bride.
But she is taken aback when the perfect 10 unicorn of a guy, Harry (Pedro Pascal), whom she meets at a wedding she had put together, is interested in her. He seems to check all the boxes and would be the obvious choice.
Lucy even takes him to an Off-Off-Broadway production, where her ex John (Chris Evans) performs. He is the antithesis of a rich guy, working catering jobs between auditions while riding around in his barely roadworthy vehicle.
Not a rom-com
I came across an IMDb review: Materialists was not what I expected.
“It’s been marketed like a rom-com – but honestly? If you’re heading in expecting laughs, you’ll be disappointed. What you get instead is a sharp, quietly melancholic study on modern love, dating, and loneliness in the big city. It’s not so much about romance as it is about emotional bankruptcy – the way ambition, money, and appearances slowly chip away at real connection.” Melancholy, yeah.
So I understand why some folks, looking for a sweet rom-com, might be disappointed. I’ve read that Johnson’s performance was flat, but I think it was dead on. The “real tension[ is] in her. What does she actually want? Love, comfort, validation? Or just a life that looks good on paper?”
This is also why Lucy was so tone deaf when dealing with the bad date one of her clients experienced.
The funniest part of the movie was the clips of the clients noting their attributes and what they were looking for. (I was going to give an example, but it doesn’t read as funny.)
The Rotten Tomatoes reviews were 80% positive with critics and 67% with audiences. All I can say is that I believed these people, especially Lucy. Dakota Johnson, by the way, was the response to a recent JEOPARDY clue. HOLLYWOOD HODGEPODGE $400: She’s the actress seen here with mom Melanie Griffith and grandmother Tippi Hedren.
Oh, I liked the cave people, too, who appeared in the beginning and then the end credits.
In an online article, I read “Tyler Diaz… played music composed by Charles Francis Johnson, University of Pennsylvania, in 1824 for Lafayette’s visit. This was an exceptional honor for a Black composer.” A Black American composer in the first quarter of the 19th century?
I don’t know this guy at all! More info from 
Here’s the Top 50 films of the 21st Century, per the 
Much to my surprise, my wife was reading my blog. She mentioned to me in last week of June, she perused the post about our daughter coming back from South Africa, and also the next one.
The Stones in Our Hands: Misreading