Beyond Capital and Love: My Thoughts on Materialists

This isn’t your average film write-up. Though Materialists seems to flaunt a sleek anti-capitalist surface, it fails to reveal a crucial undercurrent — one that speaks volumes about what our patriarchal society often neglects.

Director and writer Celine Song, featuring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans, presents a narrative where wealth, status, and the “moral economy” weigh heavily on Lucy, our matchmaker heroine. But what it overlooks is profound: the absence of erotic desire. There’s no sexual tension, no play, no kink, no messy, powerful contradictions — no desire.

The Absence of Desire: A Feminist Void

Have you ever watched a romance so carefully devoid of erotic life that its characters feel asexual? It’s not that there’s anything wrong with portraying asexual characters, but the way Materialists handles desire, or lack thereof, is more troubling. Lucy’s relationships with both men are sterile — it’s as if sexual and emotional depth have been sanitized out. There’s no kink, no erotic play, no wild abandon. This absence isn’t neutral; it’s a deliberate erasure of the complexity that makes eroticism radical and feminist.

I believe eroticism is radical self-expression — it’s not to be sanitized. Audre Lorde once said, “The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.” Yet Materialists bypasses this chaos completely. Why? Because the film’s moralistic narrative champions “true love over capitalism,” and in doing so, it seemingly fears that embracing erotic urgency might taint its utopian ideals.

This reluctance (particularly in films directed by women) is a symptom of internalized censorship. The line is invisible: show too much desire, and you risk being accused of selling out, or worse, indulging in the male gaze. But as bell hooks reminds us, “The struggle to value and embody erotic pleasure is part of a radical feminist politic of freedom.” What does this mean? A truly feminist cinema would allow women to be more than just in love; it would allow them to be in heat, in kink, in longing, without fear of retribution. Desire — raw, untamed, and consensual — should be central, not relegated to a distant corner of a sanitized narrative.

Rejecting Capital—and Agency?

In the film’s final moments, Lucy turns down a promotion at her matchmaking agency. Cue the triumph of ethics over ambition—right? Not so fast.

Intersectional feminism isn’t about pulling women out of the world of money—it’s about empowering them within it. Nancy Fraser, a feminist theorist known for her work on justice and social theory, warns that reducing feminism to a moralistic anti-capitalism risks leaving women economically vulnerable, even dependent. Fraser's work stresses the importance of combining economic redistribution with cultural recognition, acknowledging that true feminism empowers women within, not outside, capitalist systems.

Lucy’s choice—framed as noble—reads more like retreat. I believe feminism demands economic agency, not renunciation. Rejecting capitalist gain shouldn’t always be romanticized; sometimes it’s a displacement of power. Lucy’s gesture may be heartfelt—but it risks reinforcing a patriarchal script: the “good woman” who sacrifices everything rather than claim her share.

Imagining a Feminist Cinema That Thrives on Desire

What if Materialists invited us into Lucy’s erotic interior? What if she didn’t just fall in love, but explored herself, her desires, and her fantasies?

Imagine a version of the film where kink wasn’t just a fetish but a path to freedom. What if Lucy flirted with authority, played with submission, and reveled in the contradictions of power dynamics? That’s the kind of radical, feminist eroticism I champion at ERIKALUST—full of mess, full of complexity, full of consent.

Silvia Federici, a feminist scholar and activist, reminds us that capitalism disciplines bodies—not just physically, but emotionally—often by shaming desire. Filmmaking that strips erotic life from women’s narratives becomes complicit in this disciplinary logic. This is why a feminist film that doesn’t explore erotic subjectivity is missing the point. It isn’t just about romance; it’s about how desire, in all its forms, is a tool of liberation.

The Coldness of Materialists

Materialists is polished, clever, and intellectually engaging, but it leaves you cold in terms of eroticism. In its haste to critique capitalism and moralize romance, it misses the depth of erotic subjectivity—especially for its female protagonist. The narrative offers a neat dichotomy: true love over capitalism. But in doing so, it neglects the complexities of women’s desires—leaving them to choose between moral purity and economic independence.

I refuse to settle for that. I insist on stories that are wet with desire, rich with nuance, and unapologetically sexual. Cinema should challenge us—not tame us. It should show women who think, who feel, who burn, and who claim both their erotic and economic power.

After all, as Audre Lorde teaches, “The erotic is the nurturer or nursemaid of all our deepest knowledge.” To deny it is not to protect women—it is to diminish them.

P.S. SPOILER WARNING:

How did Lucy not notice Harry's scars during their intimate scene? Did he keep his pants on? Or maybe he sleeps in shorts to hide them? I don't know about you, but I couldn’t shake that little detail! Anyone else get stuck on this one?