Materialists (2025): An Intimate Meditation on Desire, Identity, and the Things We Treasure
In Materialists, the newest release from director Eleanor Marks, audiences are invited into a world where the line between objects and emotions blurs. Set in a near‑future consumerist landscape, the film gently probes how our attachments to possessions shape who we are—deeply personal, but with a universal resonance.
At its heart is Ava (portrayed impeccably by Sofia Kim), a rising architect whose sleek, minimalist aesthetic has made her the darling of upscale design circles. Yet behind the impeccable veneer lies a growing restlessness: she finds herself disillusioned by the relentless chase for the “next new thing.” Marks unspools this mid‑career malaise with quiet restraint, allowing everyday objects—a vintage compass, an heirloom sketchbook, a worn leather bag—to crescendo into emotional catalysts. As these items accumulate weight in Ava’s life, what once represented comfort morphs into constraints.
The central narrative thread follows Ava’s relationship with Theo (Raúl Castillo), an antiques dealer who navigates his days surrounded by forgotten treasures and discarded histories. Their romance blossoms amid warehouses of reclaimed furniture and back‑alley markets. Theo’s reverence for older, unpolished objects challenges Ava’s sleek modernist worldview. Their differing philosophies—Ava’s focus on progress versus Theo’s insistence that history matters—play out in layered conversations and lingering glances. The film’s strength is in these unhurried exchanges; the camera holds on Theo’s gentle smile or Ava’s fleeting doubt, letting emotion unfold in the space between words.
Marks’ visual framing is both deliberate and lyrical. Wide, symmetrical shots of minimalist architecture give way to intimate close‑ups of textured surfaces: patinated wood, scratched metal, fraying fabric. The sound design echoes this tactile quality, too—the soft rasp of old paper, the muted tap of leather. A subdued, synth‑infused score underscores the film’s emotional arc without ever overwhelming it.
Supporting performances add depth. Harriet Zhang, as Ava’s younger sister Mei, embodies the generational shift toward hyper‑consumerism. Mei’s apartment—filled with colorful gadgets and paperbacks—serves as a counterpoint to Ava’s orderly world. Edgar Aranda plays Theo’s uncle, a passionate restorer of heirloom objects, whose warmth offers a glimpse of what “value” truly means. Together, they create a microcosm of how people relate to things—some wounded, some nostalgic, some blindly acquisitive.
Materialists doesn’t offer easy solutions. It refrains from moralizing or prescribing asceticism. Instead, it observes, with empathy, how attachments—whether sentimental or status‑driven—shape our identity. In its denouement, Ava must decide whether to preserve a family artifact that holds painful memories or embrace the clean slate of a new commission. It’s a choice that speaks not just to her professional arc but to her evolving sense of self.
What makes this film quietly powerful is its refusal to reduce possession to mere consumption. The objects in Materialists are characters in their own right—repositories of memory, carriers of pain, or vessels of aspiration. The film invites us to examine not only what we own, but why. Can we reframe our relationship to the material world, or are we forever entangled?
At approximately 100 minutes, Materialists may feel almost too gentle in an age of blockbuster spectacle. But its subtlety is its gift. It’s a film that lingers—like the aftertaste of an old leather-bound journal or the echo of vinyl on a turntable. With refined direction, intimate performances, and a sensory awareness rare in mainstream cinema, Materialists stakes its claim as a modern meditation on value, identity, and the spaces we build—within and around us.
