Oh, that awkward moment where you break your engagement with the man you love, because he’s sadly possessed of neither good fortune nor the social position to make one—and gah, that even more awkward moment when he turns up eight years later, handsome as ever, and also extremely rich.
You may recognize this as the plot of Jane Austen’s Persuasion: Specifically, it’s the moment when Anne Elliot is unexpectedly reunited with Frederick Wentworth, who she rejected nearly eight years prior because her friends and family said he was too poor. Anne, now catastrophically single at the ancient-for-the-time age of 27, is being pressured by her family to marry another moneyed suitor when Wentworth shows up. But luckily for her, this choice is an easy one: Her ex’s wealth has vastly increased thanks to a successful naval career, and his feelings for Anne are undiminished. Once the awkwardness of the reunion is through and their love reaffirmed, marrying him is a no-brainer.
But wait: Now imagine that, instead of spending the intervening years making himself a better and more viable suitor for a woman of Anne’s position, Wentworth returned almost completely unchanged. As in: lovable, and loving, but also barely employed and practically destitute, making Anne’s choice between love and financial comfort as stark and agonizing as ever.
It’s this second, far more fraught scenario that forms the plot of Materialists, which came out Friday to much buzzy anticipation. Here, it seemed, were all the ingredients to revive the rom-com genre for a new generation. A 21st-century New York City summer setting, and a girlboss with perfect bangs torn between two men: one rich, one poor, both devastatingly handsome. Could this be the return, at last, of the feel-good, funny summer love story?
Alas, no.