Materialists, the second feature written and directed by Celine Song, is like a romantic comedy with much of the comedy stripped away. There was another era of Hollywood, when major studios were still interested in making movies for adults, when this script might have been wrenched away from Song and thrust into a tsunami of questionable development decisions until it was transformed into a tepid vehicle for Kate Hudson to flibbertigibbet her way through for a hundred minutes or so. In the here and now, Song gets to made the film she wants in the way she wants to make it, and the state of cinema is all the better for it.

In the film, Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a skilled matchmaker at a boutique firm in New York City that specializes in coupling up moneyed clientele. While attending the wedding of one of her clients, a sure sign of her adeptness at intertwining individuals, Lucy meets Harry (Pedro Pascal), the brother of the groom. She assesses his looks, his height, his wealth, and his easy charm and dubs him a “unicorn,” the sort of prospect that would set aflutter any number of the eligible bachelorettes paying for her services. Though single, Harry isn’t interested in employing a matchmaking service. He only has eyes for Lucy.

As Lucy is being wooed by Harry, she’s also contending with the reintroduction of John (Chris Evans) into her life. John, a fledgling actor who earns a meager living as a cater waiter, was the last person Lucy had a longterm relationship with, one that lasted at least five years. Their time together ended mainly because of constant arguments about money. Lucy wanted the security that comes with upward mobility, and John was unlikely ever to achieve it. Well after the breakup, it’s clear John still longs for Lucy, and the fondess isn’t entirely unreciprocated.

Song develops this love triangle with an interest in complications beyond the usual question of who the dewy-eyed woman will pick. As the film’s title suggests, Lucy remains helplessly fixated on the net worth of her prospective partners. The crass calculations required of her job, with its parade of entitled, often cruelly picky clients, have only enhanced her sense that the idea of soulmates is a sham. Marriage is simply another business proposition. Even so, there’s still a tingle of the romantic to Lucy, and Song writes these contradictions with humor and insight.

Johnson is a little stiff in early scenes, a quality that’s not exactly unheard of in her screen repertoire. In this instance, though, the flat affect works for the character. It part of a choice to present herself as totally in control of all situations, and there are plentiful instances for Johnson to show that well-constructed guise slipping away. The artful expression through body language that Johnson brings to the role is by itself enough proof that the plainness of some line readings is a choice rather than a flaw. Pascal and Evans are similarly successful with characters and performances that are straightforward on the surface but filled with prickly complexities.

Maybe because Song following the rhythms of a romantic comedy without adopting its bubblegum-pop tone, there are a few plotting stumbles. The desire to give Lucy a professional setback to mirror the uncertainty in her romance leads Song to come up with a client in crisis (played exceedingly well by Zoe Winters). The subplot relies on an implausible level of naïveté of the part of Lucy, seasoned enough that she’s seen nine of her matches make it all the way to altar, for it to work. It also turns out that cozily predictable romantic outcomes are a shade less satisfying when fizzy jokes aren’t there to distract from the certainty of their progressions.

As a follow-up to the wondrous Past Lives, Song’s Materialists at first glance seems like a significant departure. It’s big and forthright where the preceding film was small and interior. Yet, both clearly have the same DNA. They are from a filmmaker who is curious about the ways modern people try to make sense of their own emotions and determine how to bring those inner parts of themselves out to meet the world. That she explores these ideas with empathy and ingenuity, not to mention a casually elegant visual sensibility, is precisely why Song is such an immediately vital creator.