The Power of Your Story in ‘Materialists’

Introduction: “Materialists” and the Lure of Status—Why Storytelling is the Real Wealth

In Celine Song’s “Materialists” (2025), we don’t just watch a love story unfold—we witness the power and peril of the stories that govern how we live, love, and lead. The film’s whip-smart, emotionally layered portrait of contemporary New York dating, calibrated by algorithms and anxieties, is more than a sharp new entry in the romantic dramedy canon. It is an invitation. Lucy, our jaded matchmaker protagonist, is every creative leader at a crossroads: Will she script her fate by others’ expectations or dare to author her own legend? Guided by Peter de Kuster’s “Power of Your Story” framework, this column is both film review and leadership masterclass, weaving moments of cinematic reflection with practical prompts for anyone seeking a life less ordinary. For it is true—each of us, whether in the boardroom or at brunch, is the author of our greatest asset: our own story.

Phase 1: Inherited Narratives—Who Decides What’s Worth Chasing?

Lucy Mason, with her keen eye for metrics and merit, occupies an enviable place at the matchmaking firm ADORE. She’s the puppet-master of romance—her Manhattan clients’ futures shaped by height, salary, and family pedigree. But as the film’s sly prehistoric prologue reminds us, the quest for love and security is primal and universal; only our packaging has changed. For Lucy, material ambition is armor against uncertainty. Her mantra—“I’d rather marry rich or die alone”—is both creed and cage.

For Creative Leaders:
Which metrics—profit, prestige, “likes”—have you accepted as gospel? Who set those measures, and why?

Reflection Prompt:
In what parts of your professional journey are you still living a story written by someone else—industry norms, family expectations, institutional tradition? When did you first sense the script no longer fit?

Phase 2: The Call (and Crisis) to Write a New Story

At a lavish wedding (one she herself orchestrated), Lucy glimpses the shaky foundations of algorithmic love when her client’s perfect match ends in a bride’s public meltdown and unraveling. Two suitors enter the stage: John, her creatively rich but cash-poor ex, and Harry, the suave financier with a $12 million penthouse. The universe offers Lucy a tantalizing choice—safety versus vulnerability, certainty versus meaning. Romantic cliches aside, these men are metaphors—for every decision where leaders must choose between what looks good and what feels right.

For Creative Leaders:
Who (or what) in your life has jolted you out of complacency? Name a crisis that cracked your inherited story.

Reflection Prompt:
Recall a moment when the tools and assumptions that made you successful began to break down. What new possibilities started peeking through the cracks?

Phase 3: Transactional Life and the Illusion of Optimization

Lucy’s work thrives on optimizing variables—her spreadsheet logic of love is the same engine that powers so many “successful” ventures. When she reconnects with Harry, their flirtation is really a negotiation, peppered with statistics—the cost of his apartment, his exercise routine, her earnings. Even her connection with John is weighed with the scales of risk and reward. Yet the emptiness of this “attribute optimization” grows more obvious as the story progresses and as Lucy’s own loneliness deepens.

For Creative Leaders:
Where do you still try to “optimize” connection and creativity—treating people and projects as puzzles to be solved, rather than mysteries to be lived?

Reflection Prompt:
Describe a moment when clinging to the illusion of optimization prevented you from real presence—with your team, your clients, your own self.

Phase 4: Crossing the Real Threshold—When Metrics Fail

Lucy’s inner world shifts during a weekend with John away from city metrics and mirrors. Here, stripped of her businesslike defenses, she confronts not just him but her own vulnerabilities: doubts about her worth beyond financial or social ROI, longings she’d hidden behind professional polish. This liminality—away from comfort and calculation—is where new stories are born: hers and ours.

For Creative Leaders:
When did you last step out of your comfort zone, and what vanished (or appeared) when the old measures no longer applied?

Reflection Prompt:
Envision a space—physical or psychological—where you can set down your “armor.” What do you discover there that can’t be measured by a spreadsheet?

Phase 5: The Trials—Can You Let Go of Control?

Back in Manhattan, Lucy’s fallout with client Sophie—a match gone terribly wrong—forces her to reckon with the cost of transactionalism. Sophie’s crisis exposes the failure of surface compatibility and demands real care, not professional detachment. Meanwhile, Lucy’s emotional ties to both Harry and John (and her friends, who serve as “allies” and mirrors) test her capacity for truth, humility, and imperfect connection.

For Creative Leaders:
Recall a time reputation or results took a hit because you chose realness over perfection. Who or what kept you steady through the trial?

Reflection Prompt:
What secondary characters—friends, mentors, critics—have played an outsized role in your leadership story? How did you let them help you?

Phase 6: The Ordeal—Are You Ready to Risk for Meaning?

The film’s climax arrives as Lucy stands at a crossroads of career and heart. A big promotion at ADORE beckons, representing the ultimate validation of her old story. Yet, John’s raw, painfully honest proposal—without the guarantee of status or security—cracks Lucy’s meticulously arranged world. “When I see your face,” John says, “I see wrinkles and children that look like you. Where does that leave us?” He offers not the safety of calculation, but the alchemy of commitment and vulnerability.

For Creative Leaders:
What dazzling opportunities tempt you back into your old story? Can you sense the difference between genuine reward and hollow accolades?

Reflection Prompt:
When did a “promotion” or prize threaten to derail the truer, riskier story your soul was craving to tell?

Phase 7: The Reward—Embracing Your Unique Legend

Lucy finally turns away from the safe, successful path in favor of an uncertain, authentic future with John. She resists the “neat solution” and accepts that meaning does not lie in calculation, but in courageous, ongoing presence—for better or worse. Even her relationship with Sophie, once ruptured, is restored not by strategic intervention but by showing up as an honest friend. The reward is not a tidy ending, but a spacious new chapter: a next act authored with intention.

For Creative Leaders:
What is the “treasure” you seek—not in dollars or data, but in lived impact, meaningful relationships, or creative freedom?

Reflection Prompt:
Define, in your own words, a victory that only you would recognize. What story do you most want told about you—by those who know you best?

Phase 8: The Return—Living (and Leading) As Storyteller, Not Just Star

The film’s final scenes depict not a fairytale conclusive embrace, but a series of fresh beginnings: Lucy and John moving forward together, each other’s choice, not as “winners” but as co-authors of the unknown. Post-credits, a couple from the prehistoric vignette reappears—a meta wink to the persistence of love stories, and to our enduring hunger for authentic connection, no matter the era.

For Creative Leaders:
How do you return to your professional life transformed by the story you have chosen? What new rituals or habits can help you live out your authorship—every day?

Reflection Prompt:
Identify one small, repeatable act that will affirm your role as creator, not just performer, of your leadership story.

Summary of “Materialists”: Plot as Parable

“Materialists” centers on Lucy, a luxury NYC matchmaker whose job is to create algorithms for perfect love but who herself is alone and skeptical about emotion. Torn between two men—practically perfect Harry (Pedro Pascal), whose resume and apartment scream “success,” and her ex John (Chris Evans), a playwright scraping by but deeply attuned—Lucy’s work and personal life unravel as she learns that neither optimization nor calculation yields genuine joy. Through client moral crises, romantic choices, and friendship reckonings, she sheds her old story of achievement and control, embracing risk, truth, and the messy work of real connection. The film suggests that, in work and in love, stories are our truest currency—and only the brave dare write their own.

Conclusion: The Wealth of Story—What “Materialists” Offers Every Creative Leader

For all its timely commentary on achievement, romance, and the way we commoditize connection, “Materialists” delivers a message as old as time: We are not prisoners of inherited stories. Every creative leader has the privilege—and the peril—of authorship. To be legendary is not to play it safe, but to risk alignment, transformation, and meaning. The hero’s journey is not reserved for myth, but for every meeting, every small act of truth, every bold choice to live by a story of one’s own making. Lucy’s arc is a mirror: Will you let the world’s metrics decide what matters, or will you write—courageously and creatively—a life no one else could dream for you?

Questions to Take With You

What script about work or love have you most recently challenged? What did it cost you, and what did it give back?
Who in your community sees your legend more clearly than you do—and how do you let them help you grow?
When have you been tempted to “optimize” your story for comfort instead of meaning? What happened next?
Which risk is calling you now, and what treasure might lie on the other side?
How will you know you are living as author—not actor—of your own legend? What will change in your daily life?

Invitation: Story Coaching for Creative Leaders—Write Your Own Legend

Are you at a crossroads? Is a promotion, relationship, or creative project prompting you to ask, “Whose story am I living?” My signature story coaching, built on the Hero’s Journey and my “Power of Your Story” method, is for creative leaders, entrepreneurs, and dreamers ready to chart a course no one but you could imagine.

Who is this for?

Founders, freelancers, and change-makers at a pivotal moment
Artists, marketers, and innovators tired of following templates
Leaders and learners who want to turn wounds and questions into wisdom

What Are the Benefits?

Clarity about the story that drives your leadership—and which must be rewritten
Tools and maps for moving from old scripts to fresh, authentic narratives
Empathy-based practices for connecting with teams and clients through real stories
Action plans for integrating story into pitches, branding, and personal growth
Ongoing guidance for transforming mistakes into meaning, and setbacks into springboards

Special Offer

Hero’s Journey Story Coaching with Peter de Kuster

3 private sessions (online or in-person, 90min each)
A personal creative Story Assessment
Your custom Hero’s Journey Story Map
Actionable tools and check-ins for living your legend

Investment: €495 (exclusive of VAT)

Your legend starts not with more strategy, but with a risk: honoring the power of your own story. If you’re ready to leave behind status for soul—if you sense a bigger story wants to be told through your work, your art, your life—this journey is for you.

Become the author. Live the “Materialists” lesson. The legend is yours to write. Book now and begin.