Watching writer-director Celine Song‘s follow-up to her feature debut, indie darling and 2023 Best Picture Oscar nominee Past Lives, all sorts of supposed cinematic influences ran through my mind from Billy Wilder’s The Apartment to James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News to Mike Nichols’ Working Girl and just about anything from Nora Ephron. I left the screening thinking I had just seen the best movie about the search for love in many years.

Call it a romcom, call it a romdram or any shorthand attempt to categorize it, but this is a movie that defies that kind of easy description.

I wouldn’t actually recommend you read all of Pete Hammond’s review for Deadline of Materialists as it gives away too many spoilers (IMO), but I absolutely agree with his assessment that this is “the best movie about the search for love in many years.”

Dakota Johnson gives a stellar performance in this film, perhaps her best out of the many #movies I’ve seen her in. (Truth be told, I’m a big Johnson fan, but I do think she can be a bit one-note. The sharp writing and expert direction in Materialists gives her a lot to work with, and I was quite impressed by her range in this as I was Chris Evans as well.)

I’d heard a bit of the scuttlebutt about how this film has proven to elicit mixed responses from moviegoers—even though it’s a hit with the critics (Certified Fresh!). Personally, I was floored. And I found myself feeling very emotional about it towards the end, no doubt as it resonated with some of my own very real and raw ups and downs in love.

I would typically say a movie in this “genre” isn’t something you need to rush out to go see in movie theaters (wait for the streaming release). However, this is A24 we’re talking about, with Academy Award nominee Celine Song at the helm.

Go see it.