Materialists: The Death of Genre and the Birth of a New Movie Era

In 2023, Celine Song’s Best Picture nominated directorial debut, Past Lives, established the director, playwright, and screenwriter as an important voice of the 2020s. The film’s stunning yet quiet portrayal of lost love and fated connections ensured Song’s upcoming work would not go unnoticed. So, in September 2024, when Song’s next project was announced, expectations were already high. WIth an early summer 2025 release date, leading performances from Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal and production under A24, Materialists seemed eager to overtake Past Lives in both popularity and cinematic recognition. With Past Lives earning a total of $42.7 million in box office revenue and Materialists earning $97 million as of late August 2025, the film overtook its predecessor in one aspect. Yet, reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, IMDb and Letterboxd all heavily favor the 2023 film. Much of the rating disparity between Song’s films, in my opinion, is due to genre and its perception among present day movie goers. The lost art of rom-coms, the intellectualization of mainstream genre films, and the over-reliance on social media’s opinion of movies are all additional phenomena that I believe made it impossible for Materialists to surpass Past Lives in any way but commercially from the very beginning.

Centered around Lucy Mason (Dakota Johnson), a failed actress turned successful matchmaker, and her romantic ventures in New York city, Materialists spends much of its time ruminating on modern love and its transactional values. Lucy’s three closest relations each tell different sides of the same story. We witness Lucy repeatedly try to set up her favorite client Sophie, struggling with Sophie’s unrealistically high standards and many men who hardly meet her bare minimum. We learn about John Finch (Chris Evans), Lucy’s starving artist ex-boyfriend with whom her relationship failed due to financial issues. And we endure Harry Castillo’s (Pedro Pascal) romance with Lucy as an extremely wealthy dream man whom Lucy is simply not in love with. The juxtaposition between “checking boxes” and finding “true love” imbues every scene of the film, but takes an unpredictably dark turn when Sophie is assaulted by a man Lucy set her up with. Befuddled at her failure, Lucy is only able to reconcile her friendship when she comforts Sophie at her lowest moment. After waiting for Lucy all night outside of Sophie’s apartment, John makes a heartfelt promise to remind himself every day how much he loves Lucy if they rekindle their relationship. In the final scene, John proposes to Lucy with a humble flower ring and asks if she wants to make a bad financial decision together. Watching Lucy realize that love isn’t an exchange but a leap of faith in real time is a rollercoaster of emotions. Although it was an entertaining ride, I was left questioning exactly what genre Materialists hoped to be. A question movies have instilled in us for decades.

Officially labeled as a Romance/Comedy, tonal layers of awkward comedy, emotional introspection, consistent philosophical questions, and passionate romance intermingle throughout the 117 minute runtime. While I enjoyed Materialists, specifically due to Johnson and Evans’ excellent performances, I think the modern perception of genre is something that prevented it from being considered great. Gone are the days of the late-90s/early-2000s rom-com mill that consistently produced simple and successful romantic-comedies. Whether true or not, Hollywood now believes that more than one or two strictly romantic-comedies a year should not be released in theaters. Sure in 2023, for example, we had a very successful Anyone But You, but 1999 alone saw the release of 10 Things I hate about you, She’s All That, Notting Hill, Runaway Bride, Never Been Kissed, and Forces of Nature, 6 iconic rom-coms all of which grossed over $50 million. In 2025, to have a rom-com release worldwide and do well, it either takes a miracle or a third genre in the mix. Thus Materialists became one of the first philosophical-romantic-comedies. By philosophical I do not mean to say Song’s film questions the “fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.” I merely mean to say that an average viewer might watch Materialists and say, “that’ll make you think.” A saying I believe to be one of the most sought after reviews in Hollywood today. In the past decade, studios, producers, and audiences have begun to distance themselves from any sort of movie that could be considered low-brow. “Chick-flics”, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and horror franchises alike are all on the decline. They aren’t revolutionary anymore. Intellectually stimulating movies are quickly becoming the modern-day Hollywood holy grail; not necessarily movies that just have something to say, but movies that give the viewer something to say.

This phenomenon is rooted entirely in social media. From movie-tok to Letterboxd, having an opinion on a movie is the entrance fee to an online community bigger than any film-related community in all of history. Of course, a lot has been said about the most successful movies of the past, like Avatar or Avengers: Infinity War, but the widespread opinions are generally synonymous: the movie is good. On movie reviewing sites, however, unless the movie is nothing short of spectacular, a divisive film is more likely to go viral than a good film. A film that features striking commentary, an unpopular belief, or an unorthodox way of showcasing its message is what makes a movie blow up in 2025. If Greta Gerwig’s Barbie was made in 2001, its format and dialogue would be much more similar to another pink-loving blonde’s movie, Legally Blonde. Our screens might not have been blessed with Barbie’s introspective, emotional moments, like Margot Robbie’s beautifully subtle performance in the scene on the bench or America Ferrera’s viral monologue. These moments that made such a cultural impact in 2023, wouldn’t have been possible in Elle Woods’ era of movies.

So is this shift from surface-level blockbusters to philosophical films good or bad for cinema in general? In my opinion it is neither. In the case of Materialists, I believe a decisive choice between contemplative think-piece or rom-com easily could have made the film marginally better or worse, but it would have been a completely different piece of art. The Materialists we were given is an innovative combination of the two. I don’t think that its quality suffered because of that, but its reviews definitely did. Despite Song establishing herself as a creator of nuanced, layered work in 2023, viewers decided what Materialists would look like before it was even released. Said viewers were not happy when they realized they were wrong. However, it depends on each individual film made whether it benefits from this sought after divisiveness.

The modern era of film is unlike any we have seen before, mostly because of social media. The only way movie goers can continue to enjoy cinema is to embrace this cultural shift instead of wishing movies would return to the way they used to be. We can’t expect every film to fit perfectly into a preconceived genre or trope we are familiar with. If they did, nothing new would ever be made again. If the general quality of movies has increased or decreased due to this trend is up to interpretation, but the cultural shift we are living through is not. It is not up to any of us to decide whether the rom-com mill should restart its production, or if MCU movies should still draw in the audience they used to. It is only up to us as viewers to accept the new world social media has created for us, and try to make it as good a place as we can. Through seeing movies and spreading the word if we enjoy them, harvesting a world with good art is within our grasp. The future is here, it is up to us to shape it.