10 Recent Movies That Weren't What Anyone Expected

2. Materialists

Materialists, the new film from Oscar-nominated Past Lives filmmaker Celine Song, was marketed as a frothy rom-com centered around a love triangle between characters played by Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans.

But anyone familiar with Song's first film likely thought they knew better, that Materialists was actually a more "artsy" romantic drama in the vein of Past Lives, and one which sure to disappoint those expecting the broad, sexy rom-com implied by some of the trailers.

Yet the irony is that both camps ended up being wrong, because Materialists is neither a frothy genre film nor is it really an awards-courting drama either.

It instead lands somewhere in the middle as a rather strange comedic drama about how profoundly weird the modern dating scene is, albeit not one you'd either call crowd-pleasing or "Oscar bait."

Also, the sudden inclusion of a sexual assault subplot in the middle of the movie - where one of matchmaker Lucy's (Dakota Johnson) clients is attacked while on a date - further throws off the film's tone, making it a decidedly trickier and more inscrutable piece of work than just about anyone could've predicted.