Love, Luxury, And Indecision: What Materialists And Other Films Have To Say About Modern Dating

Do you remember the last time you went on a date? I’m not talking about a lovely lunch with that nice girl you knew growing up. I’m speaking of the dates you go on—the ones you pick, the ones you swipe right on, and by grace, they swipe right on you as well. The dates you pay $14.99 a week for, or for some, $80,000 a year to a dating specialist from Adore, a fictional luxury dating company in the transactional dating landscape of New York. Since the 2020s, there has been an influx of realism in TV and Film. With film series like Scenes From A Marriage, movies like Marriage Story, We Live in Time, and even Anatomy of a Fall, love is complex, raw, vulnerable, and extremely hurtful to both parties, as its ending—even with commodification—could always lead to emotional turmoil.

Modern dating has successfully become a consumerist market where potential life partners are being shopped through a dating app or company. The more present you are in that market, the more you long for something better, the tall, blonde, blue-eyed, six-figure unicorn of the market. And the young, but rich, exceedingly feminine boss woman who also makes six figures, has a fantastic body, and still finds a way to be a stay-at-home mother while running three companies without looking tired or losing her youth. The online and offline market is blended into one, and dating shifts into a capitalist market. The price of not winning in this market is loneliness, which can still be also be achieved after publicly winning through marriage, and has a much higher risk with the possibility of divorce. The recent 2025 film, Materialists, reflects this reality.

Materialists (2025)Director of the award-winning 2023 film, Past Lives, Celine Song, offers an intricate and colorful lens through which we can examine modern romance, illuminating all the pitfalls and sad realities. This film dives into a completely new landscape characterized by hyper-individualism, luxury, and emotional detachment in a highly emotional market. It reveals the cost of stripping love down to calculation, “math,” as Lucy says. It becomes cold and dangerous for others willing to participate, and the less invested you are in the dynamic, the more power you wield. Since women have a ‘biological timeline’ according to that view and are expected to produce the same amount of effort throughout their work, they are more likely to want that dynamic, hence they lose more.

Intimacy becomes a bargaining chip, and love is an abstract idea that may or may not come. As Individualism leads to a more selfish approach in Western dating, much emotional damage is done to one another without severe consequences, often bringing out the worst in people. Many clients tell Lucy their hearts’ most desires and wants that cannot even be confessed to another, or even their therapists, saying ludicrous things such as “no fatties, no blacks.” Lucy ideally carries the weight of the modern single society of high-class New York City confessions and is expected to create beauty out of them by linking great matches. The other ones who do not qualify in that quota become disposable and interchangeable commodities.

Lucy, played by Dakota Johnson, is a high-end matchmaker who works for a luxury dating company called Adore, earning about $80,000 a year before taxes. She lives to provide ‘happy endings’ to New York City’s most desperate and wealthy individuals, as she is ‘the best’ given her calculated and detached approach. Each match is clinically procured and scrutinized based on each person’s ‘market value.’ This market value refers to the amount of money they make (primarily for men), youth for women, weight, hair, race, size, height, childhood background, interests, and many more. The ones who are much closer to this sort of ‘golden mean’ eye of perfection are termed as ‘unicorns,’ because they are extremely hard to find. Considering all of this, Lucy does her best to set each person up with their best possible and most compatible matches who ‘tick all of their boxes.’

This portrayal is extremely unsettling as it forces the audience to examine their own market value. It forces us to ask the most intimate, truthful, and uncomfortable questions—are we truly worth the person we’ve always desired? Will any man or woman who is decent enough to sustain their own life and not live in abject poverty choose us? Or is there always better?

In a conversation with one of her love interests, an extremely affluent equity investor, Harry, played by none other than Hollywood heart-throb Pedro Pascal, Lucy mentions how she sees herself with a much wealthier man, and how she will end up marrying the next man she dates. He is, in the movie’s terms, ‘a unicorn.’ His $12 million Manhattan penthouse also makes his approach a lot more appealing for Lucy. And then there is John, played by Chris Evans—a former partner she dated for about five years, who is not only a struggling actor but also a caterer/waiter for events. He still lives in the same apartment he used to, with about two roommates, subject to all the pitfalls of untidiness by his flatmates. Financial difficulties made Lucy end her relationship with John, as she did not want to be with someone who had to think about every small penny. She realizes that it is a very shallow thing; however, her internal dilemma does not change the way she confronts the truth. Her desire for luxury after growing up in poverty and her desire for a genuine emotional connection clash.

All of these complex factors in her life make her more resistant to ending up with either party, as she even confesses to both of them why they shouldn’t choose her. To Harry, she mentions how she doesn’t love him and can have someone better, younger, fitter, higher in the market, and does not want to trap him in a loveless relationship. Even though he does not see love as a strong necessity in their relationship, he expresses his desire for genuine love, too. To John (Chris Evans), she mentions how she won’t be satisfied with a mediocre life, hammering on her fears of poverty and perhaps even connection once more. She is highly self-aware and knows she is not the most honorable person. However, she is honest, and brutally so.

It seemed as though Song intentionally made the film flat to pursue the intellect within love and partnership. It’s safe to say that this film will be one of the most significant time-capsules over the next decade or perhaps even century. As it is a far cry from the idealist versions of romance from previous decades, it certainly added to the cultural view of our modern-day society, and we will always have it as a reference to remember the dangers of commodifying intangible assets and human value.

Past Lives (2023)Another 2023 Celine Song film, Past Lives, deals with a more honest accommodation of individuality in relationships as well as a form of love and connection that may never fade away. The film follows two childhood friends from South Korea, Nora and Hae Sung, whose lives take parallel paths after Nora moves to North America. Years later, fate or the concept of ‘in-yun,’ a belief that relationships are shaped by countless interactions that suggest destiny brings them back into contact, sparking questions of what might have been across their changed identities. Around Hae Sung’s visit to NYC, He also encounters Nora’s husband, Arthur, another writer whom she meets at a writer’s retreat. Their love is also genuine, but Arthur seems to have a much deeper conflict within himself and with her, as he cannot fully know her. He mentions how she “dreams in a language he cannot understand.” He is left to swallow the hard pill that there will always be a side of his wife that he cannot touch, one that is separate from him and unfamiliar. The film confronts the idea that there is never truly any closure in genuine relationships. There may always be a part of you that is connected to something bigger and more profound. It truly differs from the idealist lens of a formal reconciliation and ‘happy ending,’ often ending in the heartbreak of the other innocent partner. Still, Song’s interpretation allows for something more incomplete and perhaps less marketable to an audience that craves fantasy and an idealist form of love. It navigates this sort of hyper-independence within the modern landscape without detachment, which creates pain. Nora is highly self-aware and kind to Arthur’s emotions. She is honest and vulnerable about all of it, even crying in his arms after Hae Sung leaves for South Korea. Their love is not survival or strategic; it is gentle and autonomous.

We Live in Time (2024)John Crowley’s 2024 romance hit, We Live in Time, casting Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh as Tobias and Almut, respectively, has a more selfless approach to love and relationships. While moving in a non-linear plot line, the film deviates from the standard ‘sick partner’ love movies like The Fault in Our Stars and Five Feet Apart. It faces a less-than-ideal reality to this phenomenon, where its beauty and simplicity are fragile and humble. The husband, Tobias, all while being an ideal homey man, is not praised by other characters in the film or by the audience. His authenticity is taken as standard, so is Almut (Florence Pugh), who falls victim to ovarian cancer. They are people who love each other and have a difficult time facing health scares, relocations, and sacrifice—nothing more or less. This film shows us that love doesn’t guarantee permanence or ‘idealness.’ It is pain and work, but at least it’s true.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Another film which may seem odd to add to this category of modern romance films is Justine Triet’s 2023 film, Anatomy Of A Fall. Starring actress Sandra Hüller as Sandra, a popular author whose life is in shambles when her husband, Samuel (played by Samuel Theis), is found dead outside their remote chalet in the French Alps. His body is found feet below the chalet, which suggests a fall from a height. The only witness was their partially blind 11-year-old son Daniel, who originally became blind due to a motorcycle accident (played by actor Milo Machado-Graner). Sandra faces accusations of murder as the investigation into his death and the fall becomes more suspicious when they uncover certain things. We, as an audience, spend our time in the past with flashbacks, in the present day, dealing with home life, the press, and the courtroom.

Samuel was supposed to pick up their son from school and didn’t, leading to an accident with the babysitter he was left with. Guilt becomes a decisive factor in their relationship as they both blame Samuel primarily, and love has no space to grow with their resentment. In a recorded altercation played in court, Samuel mentions that Sandra cheated once. According to her explanation for that reasoning, she mentions that she refused to rot inside. Her desires were not being met, and although she could last without intimacy for a while, she could not forever. With Samuel, the guilt he carried made him not only blame himself but also pity himself, leading to much inaction for a lot of his goals and eventually resentment for his wife. He wants his ‘time’ back, the youth he never took full advantage of. In a rage, she says, “You (Samuel), complain about a life you chose. You’re not the victim—not at all. Your generosity conceals something dirtier and meaner. You’re incapable of facing your ambitions, and you resent me for it, but I’m not the one who put you where you are. I have nothing to do with it. You’re not sacrificing yourself…you choose to sit on the sidelines because you’re afraid. Because your pride makes your head explode before you can even come up with the little jam of an idea. Now you wake up and you’re 40 and you need someone to blame and you’re the one to blame.”

One has to imagine and perhaps remember that these were the same two people who faced each other in a congregation of family members and friends, all while promising to love each other forever. It is an incredibly raw portrayal of how bitter love can turn out. Usually, when pain occurs, even though it may be unrelated, humans are wired to point outwards before inwards. And in a hyper-individualized Western society, it is more amplified and weaponized to protect the self.

This is what happens when we take the emotion out of living. Sometimes we forget that people are, according to Lucy from Materialists, “people are people are people,” not trophies to parade in front of your friends or make an ex jealous. They carry weight and soul. They are you.

The solution to the selfish problem of modern love is not to abstain from dating entirely. But it is to continue to show up as your most authentic self, with a more selfless approach to your partner and life. It is not to romanticize our love but to see all its aspects and love it as it is.