Materialists ending explained: Who Lucy ends up with in the end

Celine Song's Materialists is a wry, thoughtful exploration of love, ambition, and the commodification of connection in modern relationships. Set in the dazzling chaos of New York City, the film follows Lucy, a professional matchmaker with a keen eye for perfect pairings, at least on paper. But as she navigates her own love life, the lines between strategic compatibility and emotional truth begin to blur.

Sleek, stylish, and subtly aching, Materialists dives into the uncomfortable space where romance intersects with class, power, and the quiet desperation to be chosen. The film is equal parts romantic comedy and philosophical inquiry, laced with dry humor, stunning visuals, and a biting sense of honesty about what it means to want, and be wanted. Celine Song, whose debut Past Lives melted hearts with its sincerity, takes a sharper, more satirical turn here, asking viewers to consider what we trade for security, and whether that trade is ever worth it.

The ending is sure to leave viewers divided, introspective, and maybe a little breathless. A neat resolution, an easy answer, and a mirror held up to our material world — and to the feelings we’re taught to suppress in the name of having it all.

What is Materialists about?

Materialists follows Lucy, a former actress turned elite matchmaker at a swanky New York firm called Adore, where love comes with a price tag and a portfolio. Her track record? Nine successful marriages, zero romantic entanglements of her own. She’s voluntarily celibate, emotionally guarded, and entirely unapologetic about her one dating requirement: wealth. Real wealth. Unicorn-level wealth.

At the wedding of her latest power couple, Lucy finds herself the object of interest for Harry Castillo, hot, rich, and the groom’s brother. He flirts, she dodges, offering him a business card instead of her number. But the night takes another sharp turn when she runs into John, her broke ex-boyfriend, now a caterer still chasing an acting dream. Nostalgia hits hard. They talk. They laugh. They remember.

Harry, ever persistent, charms Lucy into dating him. Their romance sparkles with luxury and compliments, but beneath the surface, Lucy begins to feel more like a trophy than a partner. Still, she clings to the logic of it all, until her latest match ends in disaster. A client is assaulted, and Lucy’s carefully curated image begins to crack.

Spiraling, she cuts ties with Harry just before an Iceland getaway. With nowhere else to go, she ends up crashing with John. They’re older, more tired, still messy — but something unspoken lingers. When John uses his first real acting paycheck to fund a quiet escape upstate, it’s not just an escape from the city, it’s Lucy finally stepping off the carefully paved road and into something far less predictable. Maybe even love.

So does Lucy end up with Chris Evans' John?

Lucy spends the entire film teetering between what she wants and what she’s been told she should want: wealth, stability, curated love with champagne dinners — or the imperfect, inconvenient, deeply human connection she once had with John, her broke-but-glowing ex-boyfriend. So, who does she end up with? The answer, much like Lucy herself, is both honest and surprisingly tender.

After a charged kiss on a dance floor for a wedding, Lucy and John finally confront their unfinished business. John lays his feelings bare, confessing he’s always loved her, while Lucy admits she’s been battling her guilt, for choosing money over love, for betraying herself. But before they can resolve anything, reality barges in: Sophie, a client Lucy once tried to help, calls in a panic. Her dangerous ex-match is stalking her, and the police shrug it off. Lucy and John rush to her rescue.

This moment becomes a turning point. Lucy, once all sharp edges and self-preservation, shows up, really shows up, for someone else. And John, always steadfast, backs her every step of the way. When he offers her one last shot at a future together, not dripping in gold but grounded in love, Lucy finally says yes.

Fast forward, and Lucy is offered the top job at Adore. But she’s no longer playing by those rules. She’s ready to quit. To breathe. To live. To love.

And love finds her right where she is, on a park bench with John, sharing takeout, when he proposes. No flash, no spectacle. Just two people, a ring, and a kiss that seals the deal.

And yes, during the credits, they’re right there at the City Clerk’s office, getting their marriage licenses, hearts full and eyes wide open.

What Celine Song has to say about Lucy's choice in the end

If you’ve followed Celine Song’s work before, you’ll recognize the recurring arc of choosing — between love and a different kind of love, safety and risk, this person or that one. Her films love to sit in that tension, making the act of choosing feel both excruciating and beautifully inevitable. Just like that, Materialists is no different.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly about her decision regarding Lucy’s fate, the director said,

"I think it's so much easier to be somebody who is cynical and materialistic about what we're looking for. I totally understand it. It's fun to be like, 'Well, who cares about love?' But what I believe more than anything is that the fantasy of true love, the hope of it, the thing that's really hard and humiliating and embarrassing — it's the bravest thing you can do."

She then opened up about Lucy’s transformation throughout the film, adding:

"Lucy, in the beginning of the film, is somebody who is quote unquote very smart about the dating market; she's somebody who's very cynical. But because of what she goes through, she becomes somebody who makes a decision that Lucy, from the beginning of the film, would think is really stupid. But the truth is that she's making the only smart decision that she can, which is, when there is an offer of true love, all you can do is accept it."

---

Materialists is now in theaters.