Review: 'Materialists,' led by a radiant Dakota Johnson, explodes the romantic movie expectations and makes us fall in love with them all over again.

How do you know when you’ve met “the one”? In dating, as with movies like filmmaker Celine Song’s luminous comedy-drama “Materialists,” it depends a lot on chemistry — and even more on dropping the facades and being emotionally honest and true.

Meet Lucy, played by Dakota Johnson, who works for Adore Matchmaking, where she specializes in finding the perfect romantic match for her clients. As the movie begins, Lucy has logged her ninth wedding success — though on the big day, the bride, Charlotte (Louisa Jacobsen), is having qualms about marriage, and it takes a serious pep talk from Lucy to get the nuptials back on track.

During the reception for Charlotte and her new husband, Lucy meets the groom’s brother, Harry (Pedro Pascal), who’s both ridiculously rich and seriously charming. Lucy first tries to recruit Harry to sign on for Adore’s service — she calls him a “unicorn,” a guy who most of her women clients would be desperate to date. But Harry is more interested in dating Lucy, and after a while, that’s what happens.

At this wedding reception, though, Lucy also encounters one of the cater waiters, John (Chris Evans), an underemployed actor who’s also Lucy’s ex-boyfriend. The attraction is apparent, and in one flashback scene — where the couple argues about whether to pay $25 to park John’s car in Manhattan or miss a dinner reservation — we understand the money issues that led to their break-up. 

Song, as writer and director, cleverly sets up this scenario like a Hallmark-ready rom-com, with a classic love triangle in which Lucy must choose between the rich guy but the poor guy. In the second act, though, she complicates the formula, because neither Pascal’s Harry nor Chris’s John play to the rom-com stereotypes.

Part of the complications come from Lucy’s work, which presents her with an endless parade of wealthy New Yorkers with insanely overreaching ideas about who they can attract on the dating market. Her work with one client, Sophie (Zoe Winters), provides some key insights into Lucy’s disillusionment with her job.

If act one is a rom-com, and act two is a romantic drama, act three surprises by being the last thing a romance-minded viewer would expect: A thoughtful and precise dissection of all the rules of romance movies. Song deftly makes Lucy and her two suitors dig into the meaning of love, of marriage and of relationships. Song even reaches back to the time of the cavemen, a narrative device that is more meaningful than one might expect. (This is Song’s second movie, after her amazing debut “Past Lives.”)

Evans and Pascal are delightful in their roles, which represent the two sides of Lucy’s desires: The electricity of true love and the stability of wealth. But it’s Johnson, better than she’s ever been in a movie, who carries the weight of Song’s movie effortlessly. Johnson has earned her stripes on both the comedic and dramatic sides of Hollywood romances, and she displays a hard-earned wisdom as she becomes Song’s collaborator in deconstructing those Hollywood tropes.

The sure sign that “Materialists” is doing its job well is that it tears down the expectations of movie romance, and still ends up being a movie romance for the ages. The fundamental things apply, somebody sang in my all-time favorite movie — and Song and Johnson apply them brilliantly.

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‘Materialists’

★★★★

Opens Friday, June 13, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for language and brief sexual material. Running time: 116 minutes.