If you were asked to conjure up your perfect romantic partner, how much money would they make?

How tall would they be? What kind of clothes would they wear? What sort of work would they do?

These were the sorts of questions director and writers, Celine Song, asked clients when she worked as a matchmaker in her early 20s. It's also the sorts of questions

her protagonist Lucy asks in her new movie called Materialists. You may know filmmaker Selen

Song from her 2023 debut feature Past Lives. It was nominated for multiple Academy Awards.

It told the story of one woman and two men that she loved.

One she'd met as a child in South Korea and stayed connected with after she moved away.

And one she met as an adult at an artist residency and married.

That movie was a soft,

slow love story. Like, I remember the aching feeling I had through long stretches of it.

Materialists is fast and quippy and chock full of hot movie stars. The matchmaker Lucy is played by Dakota Johnson. She caters to clients,

and she's also caught between two potential partners. The perfect on paper finance bachelor Harry,

played by Pedro Pascal. And then there's her imperfect ex-boyfriend John, played by Chris Evans, who's a struggling actor, making money doing catering and living with roommates.

Being a struggling artist is something that Celine's song herself has experience with. Before she was a movie director, she wrote plays. That's when she did matchmaking as a side hustle.

And in this conversation, Celine and I talk about what she learned from those early days flitting between high-end clients and her friends who were struggling writers and actors

and what is gleaned and what is missed when you are honest and up front about the currencies at play in the dating market.

I always say this, which is that, like, fine if you want somebody who's six feet tall.

We're all going to be five, seven at the end. We're all going to shrink.

This is death, Sex, and Money.

The show from Slate about the things we think about a lot

and need to talk about more.

I'm Anna Sale. sale.

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