An international trailer has been released for Materialists, the new film by Oscar-nominated director of Past Lives, Celine Song.
Starring Dakota Johnson as a New York City matchmaker who finds herself “torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex”, the film stars Gladiator II actor Pedro Pascal and Captain America’s Chris Evans as her love interests.
The A24 film, to be released on 15 August, has garnered much buzz online, where fans have celebrated it for being a return to the style of the classic 90s’ romantic comedy.
One person wrote: “I’ve been waiting for a romcom that actually feels like a romcom—one with depth, charm, and great direction that doesn’t make me cringe. Maybe Materialists will finally bring back the 90s-style romcoms that made us feel good about life. Celine Song for the win.”
Another described it as “Challengers [a film about a love triangle and tennis starring Zendaya] for millennials.”
“I’ve never been more ready for a movie in my entire life,” said one eager social media user.
Song has partially based the film on her real life experience as a struggling playwright in the city, when she worked as a matchmaker to pay the bills.
Earlier this month, Johnson, whose most recent project Madame Web sparked widespread ridicule, praised Song for her ability to convey a message about modern-day dating through her characters.
“Celine speaks so eloquently about the marketplace of dating and I glitch at those words because I’m like, you can’t explain love that way. But that’s actually how people are,” she told the Associated Press.
“Marriage used to be a business deal. It was like, my father wants your cows and my mother needs your wheat and whatever. It was a trade-off. But now there’s all these books about how we expect our partner to fulfill every single aspect of our needs. And the world being dominated by social media, people don’t meet in real life anymore. They don’t behave normally in public.”
Song added: “To me, it’s about this contradiction, right? It’s this thing of how we talk about what we want in our partner, when we’re asked to use language to describe it, and how we literally, spiritually fall in love. The gap between those two things is terrifyingly big. To me, that’s where the mystery of the film is.”
