A review of the new rom-com with an edge “Materialists”
“Past Lives” (2023) was written and directed by Korean-Canadian Celine Song as a wonderfully-assured debut feature film. I loved it and have now seen it three times. In her second work, Song is again writer and director and, for me, it is another delight.
The structure of the two movies is essentially the same: a young woman makes a choice between two men who each have their attractions. What made the first film so distinctive was that the choice rested on two very different cultures. This time, the choice is fundamentally between two markedly different life styles.
“Past Lives” featured a cast of appealing unknowns, but now Song can deploy the attractions of some winsome stars: Dakota Johnson as a New York matchmaker and Pedro Pascal (“Gladiator II”) and Chris Evans (“Captain America”) as rivals for her affections. The film is a kind of rom-com, but the humour is really a light satire on materialism and, along the way, there is discussion of why we date and what we can expect when we marry.
Once again, Song’s work is loosely autobiographical in that she was herself briefly an NYC matchmaker. Once more, we have a meditation on the nature of relationships. Here she provides an rom-com that, while hardly unpredictable, is thought-provoking about the choices we make and the consequences we face. Recommended.