Love as a business deal? Whales, unicorns and why Materialists and Anora have a lot in common

The Guardian

6 hours ago

'Marriage is a business deal and it always has been.' So says Dakota Johnson's Lucy, an elite Manhattan matchmaker in Celine Song's second feature, Materialists. Lucy may be a modern woman, but her world looks eerily similar to the marriage mart of Jane Austen's day. For Lucy and her clients, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Or rather, a 'high quality woman', as Lucy would unironically put it.
Materialists drops us head first into a world where coupling off with a partner is a purely financial endeavour; where foolish notions of love are not merely ignored, but deemed to be irrelevant; where women must choose passion or practicality.
If all of this sounds rather archaic or even regressive, that's because it is. And Song knows it. After all, she frequently cites Jane Austen, specifically Pride and Prejudice, as one of her biggest inspirations for the film: 'What an amazing fantasy Pride and Prejudice is, because in that story, the love of your life is also the answer to all your practical problems,' she said to Curzon.
Just as this year's best picture winner Anora was widely viewed as the anti-Pretty Woman for flipping the fantasy of the rich-guy-falls-for-sex-worker-and-whisks-her-out-of-poverty on its head, Materialists functions as a sort of anti-Pride and Prejudice. As Song notes, Austen's beloved novel offers a similar fantasy: that the man you love might also be the answer to your practical financial problems.
In Materialists, as in Anora, the fantasy doesn't quite play out. Not that Lucy is naive enough to expect it to. No, this heroine is all practicality and sense. 'I will die alone or marry a rich man,' she says with resignation at the beginning of the film. This businesslike approach to love doesn't just come from her day job: she has been burned by passionate love in the past: her ex-boyfriend John is a 37-year-old waiter who, despite having the face of Chris Evans, can't seem to make it as an actor.
She gets her chance at the dream marriage of convenience when she meets Harry, an uber rich guy who seems nice enough and has a $12m apartment. He is, her colleague says enviously, a 'unicorn'. This is another unexpected echo of Anora – when Ani, a sex worker looking for a way out of poverty, meets and marries a wealthy young Russian, Vanya, her colleague, also envious, snarks, 'Oh, you caught your whale'.
Each of these reverse fantasies are driven by heroines who are adamantly uninterested in romance. It marks new territory. Even in Austen's day, heroines clung to the fantasy of a love match despite the practical realities of their time. And we progressed from there. The early screwball romcoms of the 1930s and 40s brought us headstrong heroines, while the 80s and 90s screen romances were filled with 'working girls' who were independent, self-sufficient women. Now, it seems, we are entering a new era defined by heroines who openly, proudly proclaim their desire for a practical match – an era of young women who have given up on love.
Fascinatingly, this is playing out in the real world, too. For a generation of young heterosexual women, a 'unicorn' or a 'whale' is seen as the ultimate prize. 'Watching Materialists when the poor man propaganda wins and Lucy picks a broke 37-year-old failed actor over rich, loving Harry who would give her the world,' one person wrote in a TikTok video in response to Materialists that scored more than 22,000 likes. 'I will not fall for broke guy propaganda, she fumbled hard,' another wrote – also liked more than 22,000 times. I can't help but recall last year's 'looking for a man in finance' TikTok trend.
Young women are also reappraising certain female characters who were once judged for their practical approach to love. Meredith Blake, the gold-digging villain of the 1998 The Parent Trap who threatens to stand in the way of true love, now has a new troop of young fans who think she was an 'icon', actually. 'Maturing is realising that Meredith just knew [sic] what she deserves and wouldn't settle for less' – TikTok again. Then there's the growing idolisation of the money-oriented Amy March, kickstarted by Greta Gerwig's 2019 adaptation of Little Women. Gerwig put the character's motivation into words: 'Don't sit there and tell me that marriage isn't an economic proposition because it is. It may not be for you, but it most certainly is for me.'
But wait. Little Women and Pride and Prejudice were written years ago when women often really did need to marry well to escape their circumstances. Why is this resonating with young women now? Haven't we moved on? Wasn't decades of feminism meant to dig us out of this reliance on men and marriage? Why are Lucy and Ani and, it would seem, tens of thousands of young women on TikTok, thinking and operating as if they were characters in a Victorian novel? What, in other words, is going on?
Song has some ideas. 'I think it has so much to do with how deeply broken our economic systems are, especially in the US,' she said in a recent Guardian interview. 'As we have learned, the American dream is not achievable. You cannot jump your class. But what's one of the few ways that you can still jump your class? Well, marriage.'
It's all rather cold and depressing. Thankfully, though, while these films may be reflecting a real, somewhat unsettling cultural shift, they defy the philosophy that romance is merely a business deal. They stand up for love. Lucy finds her 'unicorn' and Ani gets her 'whale' – but each 'love' story ends in disappointment. Lucy has to face up to the fact that she does need a little love in her life, actually – even if it means forgoing the nice restaurants.
Meanwhile, Ani is confronted with the reality that Vanya doesn't love her or even respect her enough to stand up for their marriage once his oligarch parents arrive to break them up. In each film, the third act delivers relief in the form of real human connection. Love does matter – even, and perhaps especially, in our increasingly money-obsessed world. And cinema is still fighting for it.