--- title: Celine Song’s Journey From Matchmaking to 'Materialists' description: The 'Past Lives' filmmaker's sophomore feature starring Dakota Johnson is inspired by her days as a Manhattan matchmaker. canonical: https://time.com/7282305/celine-song-materialists-interview/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-05-06T11:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:51:20.048Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Celine Song’s Journey From Matchmaking to 'Materialists' og:description: The 'Past Lives' filmmaker's sophomore feature starring Dakota Johnson is inspired by her days as a Manhattan matchmaker. og:url: https://time.com/7282305/celine-song-materialists-interview/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt94a6732af399e632/6998c64166d4e37274cbc6fe/celine-song-interview-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: celine-song-interview-01 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Celine Song’s Journey From Matchmaking to 'Materialists' twitter:description: The 'Past Lives' filmmaker's sophomore feature starring Dakota Johnson is inspired by her days as a Manhattan matchmaker. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt94a6732af399e632/6998c64166d4e37274cbc6fe/celine-song-interview-01.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Celine Song's Journey From Matchmaking to _Materialists_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent May 6, 2025 11:00 AM UTC  Celine Song’s Materialists interrogates the enduring role of wealth in courtship. Celine Song’s Materialists interrogates the enduring role of wealth in courtship.Photograph by Justin Leveritt  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent May 6, 2025 11:00 AM UTC A decade ago, before [Celine Song](https://time.com/collection/time100-next-2023/6308484/celine-song/) scored [two Oscar nominations](https://time.com/6565196/oscar-nominations-2024-snubs-surprises/) for her debut film, _Past Lives_, she was a struggling playwright searching for odd jobs to make ends meet. She didn’t have the latte-art skills to be a barista and couldn’t land a steady babysitting gig without prior experience. But with a tip from a friend already in the industry, she secured a role as a [matchmaker](https://time.com/6457597/ai-dating/) in Manhattan. A naive creature might assume Song’s meetings with clients seeking their soulmates involved conversations about hobbies, work-life balance, or procreation. In fact, the initial consultation was far more mathematical: They listed their requirements for height, income, age, and, yes, race. “All of the men would say ‘fit.’ What they meant was 20 BMI, just one level above underweight,” Song remembers. “The women wanted someone who was 6’ tall. My joke was, that person is going to be 5’7” by the time you’re 90\. And what is the goal of marriage if not to grow old together? All these numbers have nothing to do with that.” Song lasted just six months on the job, but she knew as soon as she left that she would write about the experience. “I learned more about people in those six months than I did in any other part of my life,” she says. “I knew more than their therapists because they were willing to tell me their hearts’ desires in a way that was so frank and objective.” Song’s sophomore writing and directorial effort for the big screen, _Materialists_ (June 13), centers on cynical matchmaker Lucy, played by [Dakota Johnson](https://time.com/6695321/dakota-johnson-appreciation-madame-web/). She views her job as akin to a banker taking stock of her clients’ value on the dating market. The gap between what they say they want—a lifelong companion—and their shallow checklists play as comic relief between scenes of Lucy’s own search for love. Fans of [_Past Lives_](https://time.com/6283401/past-lives-review/), which announced Song as a major new talent, will find parallels. Both center on a woman torn between her past and future. In her autobiographical debut, [Greta Lee’s stand-in for Song](https://time.com/6284223/past-lives-celine-song-greta-lee-interview/) is prompted to reminisce about her youth in Korea when a childhood crush visits; she struggles to reconcile that self with her new identity as a New York artist married to a white man. In _Materialists_, Lucy is torn between a broke but doting ex ([Chris Evans](https://time.com/4728297/gifted-chris-evans-review/)) and a suave, rich man ([Pedro Pascal](https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2023/6269821/pedro-pascal/)), known in her business as a “unicorn.”  Johnson, with Pascal, plays a woman attracted to financial security. Courtesy of A24 But whereas _Past Lives_ served up dreamily romantic visions of couples connecting on a spiritual level, _Materialists_, as its title promises, is steeped in questions of economic pragmatism. Fights over finances break up Lucy’s relationship with Evans’ struggling actor who understands her on a deep level. Lucy, like Scarlett O’Hara before her, vows she’ll never be poor again. Her quickest path to financial solvency is marrying rich. Lucy assesses her clients—and herself—using cold, unforgiving math that leaves little room for the magic of attraction. “In every aspect of our lives we talk about numbers. We talk about cars in this way, houses, jobs,” Song says during an April interview at the offices of [A24](https://time.com/collection/time100-companies-2023/6285169/a24/), which is releasing _Materialists_. The movie renders conversations about money and love as text, not subtext. While marriage was once more openly an economic proposition, “I don’t think it’s really gone away,” Song says. She wanted to show how we’ve evolved—or failed to evolve—in this respect and how our commodification of people continues to affect “something more spiritual and holy: love. I wanted to be honest about that.” --- Classic British romances, in which the marriage contract is paramount to the plot, served as reference points for _Materialists_. [_Pride and Prejudice_’s](https://time.com/6996593/pride-and-prejudice/) Darcy, Song points out, is a dreamboat because he’s not only the love of Elizabeth Bennet’s life but also solves her family’s financial woes. _Howard’s End_ is a novel more concerned with who inherits a particular house than with intimacy. The women in these stories are “always being asked to make decisions between complete practicality and the entirely romantic,” says Song. “That dichotomy is where this movie lives.” As women entered the workforce in increasing numbers in the ‘70s and ‘80s, money took a backseat to chemistry as a driving force for romance in pop culture. We never worry about [Harry or Sally](https://time.com/2970018/when-harry-met-sally-25-year-anniversary/) being able to afford New York, and Bridget Jones’ suitors are both conveniently wealthy. But Song observes that financial anxieties were still key. One of her favorite movies, Nora Ephron’s _You’ve Got Mail_, derives tension from Tom Hanks’ character, the owner of a Barnes & Noble-esque megastore, putting Meg Ryan’s whimsical children’s bookstore out of business. “That’s a movie openly about gentrification,” Song says. _Working Girl_ dealt with class anxiety. So did [_Crazy Rich Asians_](https://time.com/5360699/crazy-rich-asians-singapore-economy/). But the love interests in these movies are usually rich by happenstance. In fact, the heroine often objects to the man’s wealth and only comes around after he proves his worth, in the Darcy mold. Plenty of other films—[_The Notebook_](https://time.com/6899019/nicholas-sparks-interview-the-notebook-musical/), [_Titanic_](https://time.com/5068748/titanic-movie-20th-anniversary-review/), _The Princess Bride_—hinge on the heroine choosing the poor man she loves over a rich one who’s boring at best, loathsome at worst. In _Materialists_, money is the objective for many women. And for men, it’s an essential tool to attract mates. Early in the film, Lucy and a colleague discuss a surgery in which doctors break a man’s legs in multiple places so he can gain up to six inches in height. This very real procedure is painful, requires extensive rehab, and can cost over $100,000\. Lucy’s world-weary assessment? It’s well worth the price to expand a shorter bachelor’s romantic prospects.  Song directs Johnson and Evans on the set of Materialists. Courtesy of A24 I admit to Song that I struggled with the character of Lucy, a modern woman asserting bluntly that she would only marry a rich man, especially when she seems capable of pursuing wealth in her own career. Admittedly, as a college dropout, Lucy could probably never afford the $12 million Tribeca apartment that Pascal’s character owns. And, I suppose, who am I to judge her in _this_ economy? Song gestures at my wedding ring and asks me how old I was when I met my husband. 23\. She nods knowingly. Song, now 36, met her husband, [_Challengers_](https://time.com/6971016/challengers-review/) and [_Queer_](https://time.com/7199415/queer-daniel-craig-luca-guadagnino-interview/) screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, when she was 24\. They both won a fellowship from the Edward F. Albee Foundation and shared the barn in Montauk where that organization hosts its writers—a meet cute that would find its way into _Past Lives_. “At the time, the practicality of it all was not on my mind. We were struggling writers happy to eat from the halal cart. Being a woman that age, you still think you can meet the love of your life on the street. By your 30s, it’s clear how much money everyone is making. You need certain things. There’s a hardening that happens,” she says, offering her grand theory of dating. “If you ask your friends who are single now what they’re looking for, they might start with height.” --- Song has spent a lot of time talking with people about their love lives. Those who hear she was a matchmaker want to ask her advice on finding a partner, while those who have seen her movies want to share their own love stories. “It’s a privilege. The smartest people in the world start talking about romantic love, and it reduces them to sounding like idiots,” she says. “You ask someone why they love their partner, they tell you it’s because of some small thing they do, not because that person checked a box.” Song will keep writing about love because it’s at once universal and mysterious. But she does worry for the genre: Studios often send romances straight to streaming despite the occasional breakout like last year’s [_Anyone But You_](https://time.com/6970141/anyone-but-you-netflix-shakespeare/) performing well at the box office. In one scene in _Materialists_, a male character dismisses dating as “not that serious.” Lucy shoots back, “Just girl sh-t, right?”  Johnson as Lucy in Materialists. Courtesy of A24 “That is me being open about how this is serious sh-t. People call [romances](https://time.com/6694338/best-rom-coms-on-netflix/) chick flicks,” says Song. “Of course it’s tied to misogyny. But when people say it’s not important, I ask, ‘Not as important as what?’ When you watch a movie, we don’t all know what it’s like to save the world. But we know what it’s like to fall in love. It’s the biggest drama in our lives. It’s vital, and we need to talk about it more.” _Materialists_ is also a [love triangle film](https://time.com/6971626/love-triangle-movies-challengers/) featuring a two-men-one woman entanglement much like _Past Lives_. Song rolls her eyes when I bring up the similarity_._ “I spent the entire _Past Lives_ release talking about how it’s not a love triangle of that kind. It’s actually more of a love triangle between a person’s past, present, and future,” she says, laughing at her own exasperation. “And everyone’s talking about it like love triangles aren’t a fundamental part of every f-cking romance film. That’s the will-they-won’t-they. That’s the tension.” It’s also the dream. Lucy’s dilemma, being wooed by two devastatingly handsome men, beats the hellish dating scene in which her clients are rejected for facile reasons. The movie at times borders on cynicism, and working as matchmaker could make anyone jaded. But Song insists that she is, at heart, a romantic. “Is it worth it? Why can’t I just pursue somebody who is 6’ tall and makes a certain amount of money? Why should I look for this thing that feels elusive and has only ever caused me heartbreak?” she asks. “I know from my own experience that, yes, it is definitely worth it. I wish it wasn’t, because then we could just quit. 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