Ah Hollywood directors, they’re just like us. Well at least they probably were, before they become, you know, Hollywood directors. Take Celine Song, for instance. Before the Past Lives director was making people pine for their childhood sweethearts and generating Oscar buzz, she was working a side-hustle, mining inspiration for a film she didn’t even know she’d end up making.
Apparently when Song was a struggling playwright who had just moved to New York City, rather than pick up a gig as a Starbucks barista or shop assistant, she thought she’d try her luck in a less-saturated market: matchmaking. After meeting a matchmaker at a party, she told Today.com “I was like, ‘Well, maybe I’ll try to get that job.’” She did, and six months of pairing seemingly compatible singles in the Big Apple taught Song “more about human beings” than anything else she’d done in her life.
Fast forward to 2025, and Song’s brief stint as a matchmaker proved perfect fodder for her rom-com debut: the Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal-fronted Materialists. In case your FYPs haven’t been peppered with snippets of the film, Lucy (played by Dakota Johnson) is a high-end matchmaker pairing successful singletons based on largely materialistic factors — height, weight, income, (you know, all the important ones). The film is a deliciously nostalgic romp reliant on all the best tropes of 2000s rom-coms, and it paints an interesting portrait of modern dating. Specifically, of matchmaking — an art we’ve since outsourced to algorithms and apps like Hinge and Bumble.
Although, matchmaking is still a thing. A simple Google search of “matchmaker services” spits out a surprising number of executive dating agencies and organisations promising “exclusive introductions” and “elite matchmaking.” Where an app requires you to pretend your typical Sunday isn’t battling a hangover by binge-watching reruns of The O.C and generally accepting that no one is the height they say they are, a real-life matchmaker does the heavy lifting (and all the vetting) for you. One matchmaker stationed in an elite harbour enclave of Sydney promises to pair high-calibre singles with partners who also value the finer things in life, like sunrise beach walks and weekend sailing adventures. Another calls upon intuition and empathy (as well as a robust network of image consultants and dating coaches) to pair promising candidates, wherever in the world they reside. If you’ve ever observed Mumbai’s preeminent matchmaker Sima Taparia hard at work on Netflix’s Indian Matchmaking, you’ll know that when it comes to coupling people up, Hinge has nothing on Sima Aunty.
As any single person treading murky water in the dating pool will tell you, it’s hard out there. Perhaps it’s time to throw on a lifejacket in the form of a stiletto-wearing, bachelor-sourcing matchmaker and float safely to shore?
