Dating apps have made us all amateur matchmakers. As if writing a résumé, singles list out credentials like education and occupation—with the addition of political beliefs, smoking preferences, and, most divisive of all, height—and hope for a match, swiping past anyone who falls short. Digital dating has unlocked Pandora’s box, an endless scroll of singles, yet no one meets the mark. This is nothing new. Love—or really, dating—has always been a system of standards and expectations. That’s the terrain of Materialists, Celine Song’s sophomore film, the follow-up to her soul-bruising 2023 debut Past Lives. Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a professional matchmaker at a high-end Manhattan dating service called Adore, is a love engineer. Her job is part psychology, part social math—crunching data on compatibility, looks, ambition, and class. It’s love as a luxury service.

But what if the numbers just don’t add up? You have to take a look at the formula.

Materialists is billed as a rom-com revival, but that’s a misdirect. Song’s film may wear the clothing of a rom-com—attractive leads, glossy settings, lightning-fast chemistry—but it quickly undresses the genre’s illusions. Song lays bare the tricky parts of love, holding the messiness accountable without overplaying the drama. Instead of sweet escapism, it pulls us into the gray areas of desire, power, and performance. Many of us still find comfort in the luxurious settings of Nancy Meyers’s Something’s Gotta Give (2003) or the bright-eyed optimism of Gary Winick’s 13 Going on 30 (2004). Still, Song offers something sharper: a barbed investigation of modern love. And right now, that feels exactly right. –Chicago Reader