Fans of '90s and '00s rom-coms are convinced: 'Materialists' is reviving the genre.
Immaculate Nora Ephron vibes. A cheesy trailer voice-over. Nostalgic typography. An outrageously attractive love triangle that unravels across New York City. Celine Song's latest romance film, Materialists, doesn't arrive in theaters until June 13, but that hasn't stopped fans from making a bold proclamation based on the trailer alone: that the late-'90s and early-aughts rom-com is absolutely back.
The second trailer for Song's sophomore film, the follow-up to her Oscar-nominated 2023 debut, Past Lives, was released on Thursday. It quickly set the internet ablaze, and fans of romantic comedies that were primarily released in the '90s and early '00s flocked to social media to praise the trailer, which has been described as an ode to the beloved genre.
Materialists follows Lucy, played by Dakota Johnson, a successful young matchmaker and eternal bachelorette who falls into a complicated love triangle with Harry (Pedro Pascal), a charming businessman, and John (Chris Evans), her bartender ex-boyfriend.
Fans immediately took note of Song's decision to include a voice-over in the latest trailer, harking back to trailers of rom-coms past, like 2001's The Wedding Planner and 2003's How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. The Materialists trailer is filled with nostalgic, teasing narration, with phrases like 'In a world of…' and 'This summer…,' all while being soundtracked to an indie-pop cover of Madonna's 'Material Girl.'
'From Academy Award-nominated director Celine Song, comes a modern take on what true love is really worth,' the narrator declares.
Another quality of the trailer and poster that distinctly recalls the magic of early-'90s and late-'00s romantic comedies? Its choice typography — playful, clean and modern in a pastel hue — appears stylistically on brand with other standout romantic-comedies of the time, like Two Weeks Notice, Sweet Home Alabama or 27 Dresses.
The Materialists promotional poster, along with its tagline 'Some people just want more,' is for some fans also reminiscent of late-'90s and early-aughts rom-com poster archetypes. The film's personable, lighthearted vibe is further demonstrated by A24's recently released handwritten character sheets, each accompanied by a flatlay that corresponds with their given interests. Johnson's Lucy is a 'workaholic' of 'average height,' while Pascal's Harry is 'old money' and Evans's John 'voted for Bernie.'
'She's at a very interesting time of her life where she's sort of teetering between two worlds,' Johnson told Entertainment Weekly about Lucy earlier this month, adding that Lucy is 'on this journey of trying to figure out whether she wants a life that she thinks will make her happy or a life that she knows will be extremely challenging, but she will be actually loved.'
For rom-com enthusiasts, Song's choice of men to round out the Materialists love triangle makes total sense, with a veteran onscreen love interest in Evans and the internet's latest obsession in Pascal.
Evans, of course, famously appeared in early-aughts mainstays like Not Another Teen Movie and The Perfect Score, before starring in romantic comedies like What's Your Number? And Before We Go in the mid-2010s. Pascal, meanwhile, since emerging as the 'internet's daddy,' has been taking mainstream media by storm. Fans have long voiced their desire to see The Last of Us star as a romantic lead.
Song has yet to address the comparisons to earlier rom-coms, but she has spoken about the importance of exploring modern love in her films.
'Love and dating, even though those are things that men do as well, there is a dismissive feeling of it being called a chick flick or lighter fare,' Song said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. 'I think there's nothing more hardcore than this thing that we do, which is love someone. Romance is a very hardcore thing because it's one of the most dramatic things that everybody gets to do. It's one of the biggest dramas of our lives.'
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