Materialists is pleasing but predictable, Dead To Rights memorialises Nanjing Massacre

The story: Professional matchmaker Lucy (Dakota Johnson), so confident at engineering marriages for the elite clients of her New York City agency, wavers when it comes to her two devoted suitors.

- Whang Yee Ling

MATERIALISTS (NC16) 116 minutes, opens on Aug 28 ★★★★☆

Materialists is Canadian filmmaker Celine Song's sophomore feature, a love triangle like her critically adored Past Lives (2023), albeit filtered through cold hard economics.

Matrimonies are mergers and acquisitions to Lucy. She is the risk analyst, crunching data on age, status and body mass index to find singles their mates.

Song herself had a side hustle as a matchmaker while she was a struggling playwright. Hence, this American dramedy offers sardonic insights about men wanting only women below 30; and women, including glamorous Lucy, stipulating their men be tall and high-income.

Charming private equity manager Harry (Pedro Pascal) checks all her boxes. He wines and dines her luxuriously after they meet at a society wedding, where he is the groom's brother — and where her old flame John (Chris Evans) reappears as the catering waiter.

Lucy had left John five years earlier because she was sick of how poor they were, and he is still broke, at 37, and yet, their connection is immediate.