“The Materialists” is a fantastic movie about dating, not so much about love

A spoiler-heavyyyy review.

I watched The Materialists a few days ago in a hot, stuffy theater while it was pouring rain out, and I honestly loved it. To be fair, there are a lot of things the film most definitely isn’t: The Materialists is funny, but I would not say it’s “fun,” and it’s definitely not a “romp.” Overall, I found it to be quite a dead serious movie that gets a bit lost along the way while it’s intellectualizing its feelings. But ultimately, I do think the film succeeds in presenting us with an updated thesis on the travails of modern dating and literal match-making that feels both memorable and agnostic to any specific point in time — no small feat when the more basic iterations of the rom-com form one might find on Netflix are so clearly be proud of themselves for simply knowing what “ghosting” is.