Materialists

A matchmaker's lucrative business is complicated when she falls into a toxic love triangle that threatens her clients.

A decade ago, when Celine Song (PAST LIVES) was still a struggling play-wright, she was stuck in the defining experience of every New York City artist: finding a day job. It was harder than one would think, and she soon found herself somewhere entirely unexpected. Song couldn’t get hired making coffee as a barista, or scanning items in retail, but, getting a tip at a party, she instead found herself as a liaison of people’s most intimate desires and ideals. She began working as a matchmaker.

Song’s sophomore film — clear-eyed and sensitive, and above all a piercingly honest examination of the contradictions of modern love and dating — was partly inspired by her revealing and often entirely confounding experience helping people find their ideal partner.

Lucy (Dakota Johnson), the protagonist of Materialists, works at a high-end matchmaking company, like Song once did, meeting with private equity managers and moneyed professionals and trying to pair them up with the other elite bachelors and bachelorettes of the city. What they’re looking for provides a jarring window into the darker truths about how we imagine our love lives.

Showtime is 5:00, so I've set the event start time for 15 minutes before that so we can chat and find our seats. Afterwards, let's head down to Lucha Tigre to discuss.