L ike all love triangles, Celine Song’s new film Materialists places you at a fateful fork in the road, peering at two points in the distance and evaluating the different futures that lie in wait. In Materialists, the first destination looks like this: a glossy Manhattan penthouse; regular dinner dates at five-star restaurants; few if no apparent friends; a lot of money, and being the object of envy of New York’s society women. What you lack in warmth you make up for in status. The second, meanwhile, is much less glamorous: a dingy shared apartment in south Brooklyn with two slob flatmates; arguments about money; takeaway meals from food trucks. But perhaps you’d have a lot more fun.

It’s the question driving many of our romantic stories, the choice animating everything from Jane Auste

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