‘Materialists’ Director Celine Song Believes in Love at First Conversation

Modern Love

The New York Times

Nytimes, Redemption, Society & Culture, New York Times, Love, Essay, Storytelling, Loss, Nyt

4.4 • 8.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The director Celine Song won over audiences and critics alike with her first feature film, “Past Lives,” the semi-autobiographical tale of a married Korean American woman meeting up with her former childhood sweetheart. Now Song is back with another story about love called “The Materialists.” This time the main character is a matchmaker, a job that Song did briefly in her early 20s. Today on the show, Song reads Louise Rafkin’s Modern Love essay “My View From the Margins,” about a relationship columnist who can’t figure out love in her own life. And Song tells us how neither falling in love at age 24 nor making a career of writing about love has brought her any closer to understanding it. “It’s the one thing that makes me feel like a fool,” Song says. Here’s how to submit a Modern Love essay to The New York Times. Here’s how to submit a Tiny Love Story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Love now and...
0:03.3	Love, but stronger than anything...
0:07.0	For the love...
0:08.0	And I love you more than anything.
0:10.5	Body love!
0:11.3	There's to love.
0:13.4	From the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin.
0:15.9	This is Modern Love.
0:19.9	Today, I'm talking to director and writer Celine's song. I got to say,
0:27.0	Celine can write a love story. I've watched her first movie, past lives four different times,
0:33.6	which means I cried watching past lives four different times.
0:37.7	And I'm not alone in feeling so moved by it.
0:41.0	Past Lives was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
0:45.5	It's a story about a woman named Nora,
0:48.2	who is happily married when she reconnects with her childhood sweetheart,
0:52.4	who she hasn't seen since she emigrated from Korea as a kid.
0:55.6	And when he comes to visit her in New York,
0:58.2	Nora finds herself torn between her past, her present, and her future.
1:05.5	Is he attractive?
1:08.7	I think so.
1:15.6	He's really masculine in this way that I think is so Korean. Are you attracted to him?
1:20.6	I don't think so.
	...

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