"To Marry for Love, or for Money ?"

Comedy Drama

Cert: 15

US 2025 117 mins (plus an intermission of 15 mins)

Director: Celine Song (Past Lives – also shown at Talisman Cinema)

Starring: Pedro Pascal, Chris Evans and Dakota Johnson

An ambitious young New York City matchmaker finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex.

Lucy is a successful matchmaker in Manhattan, though she has not been as lucky in her own love life. At the wedding of one of her clients, she meets the wealthy and charismatic Harry, while also running into her ex-boyfriend John, a struggling actor.

To marry for love, or for money? That's the age-old question writer-director Celine Song poses in her soulful romantic dramedy "Materialists."

Song's follow-up to her achingly gorgeous 2023 drama "Past Lives" draws from the traditions of Jane Austen, classic screwball comedies and those early-naughts rom-coms. You could imagine Kate Hudson as a girl on the go in the big city in some fluffier version of this movie.

And yet, "Materialists" is very much its own thing: sharper and spikier, brutally honest and bracingly contemporary in its depiction of dating in 21st-century Manhattan. If you're seeing it with hopes of glittery escapism, based on its A-list stars and a trailer that prominently features a cover of Madonna's "Material Girl," be prepared that the result is a little sadder, a little more substantial. And that's much of what's so wonderful about it.

The film will be shown with an intermission with the bar and ice creams available.

A mature deconstruction of the conventional rom-com, Materialists provides its trio of swoon-worthy stars some of their meatiest material yet while reaffirming Celine song as a modern master of relationship dramas.

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus

That's the strength of Song's writing. One of the two Academy Award nominations 'Past Lives' received was for her original screenplay. Here she once again reveals a startling ability to write characters who feel real and complicated, messy and vulnerable, but are also blessed with the gift of saying the right thing at the right time in a way that's direct but poetic.

Sunday Times

Saturday 4th July at 7:30pm