Materialists
“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of” – Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
After the surprising success of her debut feature, Past Lives (2023), it was inevitable Celine Song would get the opportunity to make a film with a bigger budget and an all-star cast. Materialists is that film: a superior romcom which extracts new life from a wellworn genre.
As all romcoms have their origins in the novels of Jane Austen, it could be argued they are intrinsically no more than parodies, if not travesties. The usual formula is that of Pride and Prejudice, in which an attractive, intelligent young woman from a poor family is repelled by an arrogant wealthy man and links her destiny with a chap from her own class. As the plot thickens, we discover that the low-class fellow is a cad and a phony, and the aristocrat a beacon of morality. By the end of the story, Lizzie has hooked up with Mr. Darcy, and all is well with the world.
There have been countless cinematic variations on this formula, but the basic conundrum is whether one should marry for love or money. In most instances, the problem is magically resolved when the heroine finds out the rich guy is also a warm-and-wonderful human being, opening the door to both love and money. Viewers may embrace this fantasy without much hope of emulating it in their own lives.