A title as vague as Materialists makes it tough to nail down its probable plot. Based on the poster art seen to your left, though, if you guess “love triangle among pretty people”, that’s a bingo!

Lucy Mason (Dakota Johnson) works as a professional matchmaker. However, she avoids romance in her own life.

This changes when she attends a client’s wedding and meets handsome, successful and charming Harry Castillo (Pedro Pascal) – and also runs into ex-boyfriend John Pitts (Chris Evans) because he works the event as a waiter. This creates a circumstance in which Lucy needs to choose between her heart and her head.

I indicated that I think Materialists offers a fairly non-descriptive title, that becomes the case only in the abstract. When you watch the film, though, it makes more sense.

And that goes to the conflict between Lucy’s choice of John or Harry, as it’s the “materialist” in Lucy that pushes her toward the rich dude. Flashbacks show her prior relationship with John and the root of her desire to live a luxurious life.

Materialists doesn’t paint Harry as some “great on paper” but otherwise flawed romantic interest, so he seems like a quality guy for whom Lucy could fall. At no point does the film depict him as objectionable in any way.

Which I like, as a story such as this usually would color Harry as enough of a jerk that we’d root for Lucy to go after her One True Love, who we presume to be John. But what if Harry exists as the superior match and there’s a good reason Lucy and John broke up beyond her desire for a cushy lifestyle?

To its credit, Materialists delves into this trend - somewhat. It allows us to see that perhaps the Poor Guy with the Heart of Gold might not turn into the better partner instead of the wealthy, privileged dude.

While I like this theme, Materialists fails to explore it – or Lucy’s dating life – as much as one might expect thanks to a major misstep connected to a subplot. About halfway into the movie, we learn that a match assaults a female client of Lucy’s.

This ties into the film’s overall story but it still feels like a bad choice. It sends a dark jolt into a narrative that works better when it leans light and creates a change of tone from which the flick never quite recovers.

It also doesn’t help that Materialists tends to feel more like commentary about the state of modern dating and less of a romantic character journey. Sure, the two sides connect at times, but it can seem as though writer/director Celine Song cares more about those elements than the development of rich drama.

In addition, it becomes an issue that Lucy remains a largely unsympathetic lead. She seems so mercenary about her own life that it becomes awfully difficult to care about her, and the movie’s attempts to allow her to grow and mature don’t really work.

The presence of Johnson doesn’t help. Oft-derided for her less than natural performances, I don’t think she’s as poor an actor as many do.

That said, Johnson can’t really form an engaging character out of Lucy. She lacks the charm to overcome the role’s inherent drawbacks, and our basic absence of affection for the tale’s protagonist becomes an issue.

Materialists remains reasonably engaging nonetheless, and I really do like that it doesn’t make either male protagonist the Clear Wrong Choice for Lucy at any point. Still, the end result doesn’t quite come together like it should so it turns into an erratic character journey.

Materialists appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. The movie came with a terrific presentation.

Sharpness worked very well. Virtually no softness occurred, so the movie looked tight and concise.

I witnessed no concerns with jaggies or moiré effects, and edge haloes stayed absent. Print flaws also didn’t appear in this clean transfer.

The movie’s palette favored a low-key mix of amber and teal. While not creative, the disc replicated them well.

Blacks were dark and deep, while shadows smooth and concise. This turned into an appealing image.

No one would expect a sizzling soundtrack from a character flick like Materialists. Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, the Dolby Atmos remained decidedly modest in scope, so the soundscape offered moderate environmental information and not much more.

This meant ambiance in street scenes or parties or restaurants. However, we didn’t find much beyond that, which made sense for the chatty tale.

Audio quality seemed positive. Music was peppy and full, and speech seemed natural and concise.

Effects had little to do but showed positive clarity and accuracy. In the end, this became a “B“ track.

As we shift to extras, we open with an audio commentary from writer/director Celine Song. She provides a running screen-specific look at story/characters, themes and real-life inspirations, cast and performances, music and audio, editing, photography, various design choices, sets and locations, and related domains.

From start to finish, Song gives us a delightful commentary. She covers all the appropriate topics and does so in a bright, engaging manner that means we enjoy her remarks the whole way.

Two featurettes follow, and The Math of Modern Dating spans 16 minutes, 46 seconds. It includes remarks from Song, production designer Anthony Gasparro, costume designer Katina Danabassis and actors Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, Pedro Pascal, and Marin Ireland.

The program looks at Song’s approach to the project, cast and performances, story/characters/influences, sets and locations, cinematography, and costumes. “Dating” mixes fluff and facts.

Composer Deep Dive goes for 10 minutes, 56 seconds. It features songwriters Michelle Zauner and Craig Hendrix

Known as “Japanese Breakfast”, they discuss their song “My Baby (Got Nothing at All)”. We find an interesting dissection of their processes.

Like apparently all A24 releases, this one comes with six Photo Cards that display behind the scenes stills. They seem forgettable.

As a look at dating in the 2020s, Materialists occasionally scores some points. However, it lacks consistency and makes too many missteps to really connect. The Blu-ray comes with excellent visuals, generally good audio and a decent mix of bonus features. I like aspects of the movie but don’t think it hits the mark as a whole.