Latest news with #Materialists
ABC News
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
A real-life matchmaker's verdict on Materialists and his advice for singles wanting to meet that perfect match
Joseph Dixon says he has to hold himself back from "yelling and screaming" as he watches the romantic comedy Materialists. "This is my life, my life," Mr Dixon told ABC News about his reaction to the film. "Someone understands. Mr Dixon is the CEO and lead matchmaker at Bachelors Inc, a matchmaking agency for "highly eligible" bachelors of the United States. And while the director of Materialists, Celine Song, told the ABC's Screen Show she worked as a matchmaker for six months, Mr Dixon has more than 12 years of experience in the industry. In Materialists, Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades of Grey) plays Lucy, a young, ambitious matchmaker working in New York City, who is caught up in a love triangle with her perfect match Harry (Pedro Pascal) and her imperfect ex John (Chris Evans). Mr Dixon, who used to work as a real estate broker, says while some movies grossly misinterpret people's careers, Materialists was true to life. "It was a great balance," he said. "I loved it because it talked about real life as far as a matchmaker is concerned. "I've been a married matchmaker, I've been a single matchmaker, so I totally understand everything that she was going through as a matchmaker as well. "It was a really, really good movie. I like the storyline. The acting was good. Mr Dixon says there are often two main reasons people choose the matchmaking route. "Most of my clients, bachelors and bachelorettes, they are all career-driven. "They have a lot going on, [they are] highly successful, so they don't have access to just go out and meet people like they used to, because they are busy. "I have doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, business owners, dentists, athletes, entertainers, they all have busy lives, so they do want to meet good people that are on their level. "And the convenience of matchmaking, [the movie] does touch on that as well where a person can come to say, 'this is exactly what I'm looking for' and possibly be introduced to those people." Mr Dixon says, as depicted in the film, matchmaking is about more than just making introductions. "It's also about helping our clients understand what they truly want [and] what they truly need in a partner as well. "We talk about values and alignment, rather than just surface-level attraction." Mr Dixon says the movie addresses unrealistic expectations, which is something he deals with on a daily basis. "If you tell me you're looking for what we call, she said it in the movie, a unicorn, and that unicorn has to live within a 5-mile [8 kilometre] radius of you, that may be an unrealistic expectation because it's all about the access and what the dating pool may look like," Mr Dixon said. "I think some people do come to matchmaking just thinking that we have a genie in the closet somewhere. "And we just go in the closet and rub it and out comes this perfect man or woman. "I tell people all the time, 'What you see in the dating pool is what you see in matchmaking as well.' "The good thing about matchmaking is that we are people connectors." He says he is sometimes blown away by what people come to him looking for. "Sometimes it boggles my mind, a laundry list of things that a person is looking for. "But by the time they work with me, because I'm a very, very forthcoming, blunt person and if you're able to take honesty, then I will give it to you." It is hard to go past the title of the film, and Mr Dixon says high-end matchmaking can be very materialistic. "Most of our clients are well-to-do, well-educated, [and have] great careers," Mr Dixon said. "They have material possessions themselves, so they don't want to dumb down their life for someone else, for the most part." He says this materialism can get in the way. "I love love," he said. "I've always been a hopeful romantic and I think with love anything is possible and I think a lot of people miss out on their soulmate and miss out on the right person for them because they have a checklist of things that this person has to have when it comes just material things. "We're not even talking about the intangibles, or the characteristics or the personality or the morality of the person, we're just talking about pure material." He says true love is what makes a relationship last the distance and should be the main foundation in any marriage. "I think when you find someone that you're in love with and they are in love with you as well, that's a bond that is hard to break," Mr Dixon said. Mr Dixon says, as the movie depicts, connections require self-awareness and vulnerability. "You have to be vulnerable to find love," he said. "The more vulnerable you get with a person, the more you really allow them to see you for who you are." His advice for those wanting love? "Don't come to a matchmaker with a Santa Claus list. "What are the top three things that you feel will make you really happy in a relationship, and then we'll start from there."
Atlantic
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
A Love Story That's Afraid of Romance
Modern dating, experts have lamented, has become a numbers game; the more matches you make, the more likely you are to land a mate. But in the new film Materialists, the only number that really matters is a suitor's net worth. Take Harry (played by Pedro Pascal), for example: He's a partner in a private-equity firm and the owner of a $12 million penthouse apartment in Manhattan. John (Chris Evans), meanwhile, lives paycheck to paycheck as an aspiring actor and part-time cater waiter who splits his rent with roommates. Between the two of them, Harry's the obvious 'unicorn'—the most desirable kind of bachelor, according to Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a professional matchmaker and the film's protagonist. Lucy sees dating as a marketplace of potential spouses whose worth is determined by their income as much as their looks. Never mind their interests or how they'd treat a partner; a guy like Harry is inherently more valuable than someone like John. Lucy isn't heartless. Rather, she sees herself as pragmatic about modern romance. Materialists, the writer-director Celine Song's follow-up to her sensitive Oscar-nominated feature, Past Lives, tracks Lucy as she finds matches for her clients, many of whom also think about future partners as commodities. The men tell her that they want women under a certain BMI and age; the women want men above a certain height and tax bracket. As amused as she might sometimes be by their demands, Lucy promises to introduce them to their 'grave buddy.' To her, finding love should be easy—it's just math, she likes to say—yet Lucy's own love life has remained stagnant. She asserts to anyone who asks that she'll either marry rich or die alone. This being a romantic dramedy, Lucy ends up in something of a love triangle anyway: She falls for Harry while harboring a lingering affection for John, who happens to be her ex. But her predicament isn't really about which suitor she'll choose; instead, she's caught between two versions of herself—the cash-strapped idealist who once pursued acting alongside John, and the polished working girl she's become. The core conflict of Materialists is similar to that of Past Lives, yet Song renders it less successfully here. Lucy's journey takes too many cynical turns to be satisfying, and the film's ideas are too scattershot to be convincing. Materialists falters most when it tries to mesh its competing aims: to deliver a throwback love story while also deconstructing the reality of modern dating. Instead, in the end, the film resembles the very world it tries to critique, offering a litany of observations about finding The One without ever substantially arguing for any of them. The film's glossy veneer of confidence, much like that of its lead, belies an uncertainty. Apart from some punchy dialogue probing the economy of marriage, its tale is shallow, with almost nonexistent stakes. John and Harry pose little challenge to Lucy's notions about partners needing to check each other's superficial boxes; both are handsome and smitten with her, and the disparity in their wealth never presents much of an obstacle for Lucy either. She had taken issue with John's poverty when they were together, as shown in a clunkily inserted flashback, but his finances are a mere asterisk to their present-day dynamic. Lucy is as thinly written as her suitors—a nod, maybe, to the threadbare profiles of app-fueled dating, but one that makes her a frustratingly inscrutable romantic lead. It doesn't help that Johnson, whose flat affect can be an asset in enigmatic dramas such as The Lost Daughter, isn't particularly believable as a woman with hang-ups about money. (If she's the provenance behind ' iPhone face ' in the misguided Netflix adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion, here she has what I call 'property-portfolio face.') The bigger problem, however, lies in Lucy's inelegant transformation from a skeptic about love to a wholehearted believer in it. When her most persistent client, Sophie (Zoë Winters), is sexually assaulted on a date, Sophie alternates between being furious at and grateful for Lucy, leaving the third act a confused mess. Although Winters captures Sophie's despair, her character gets compressed into a plot point and her arc produces a jarring shift in mood. Lucy's realization that she should, as Sophie advises her, treat her clients as more than 'merchandise' rings hollow as a result. Not to sound like someone still pining for an ex, but Materialists made me miss the work Song did in Past Lives. In that film, which followed a married woman yearning for the person she used to be after reconnecting with her childhood crush, Song used intimate specificity to unearth reflections about love—romantic, platonic, and otherwise. In Materialists, the director has essentially done the opposite: Her characters are mouthpieces for broad philosophies about connection, while their stories end up getting buried. The effect is a work that's tonally at odds with itself. Though Materialists is similarly packed with insightful monologues, it's heavy-handed in a way that Past Lives never was. Song bookends her latest with sappy scenes of prehistoric humans falling in love, and she injects flippancy into moments that call for sentimentality: When Lucy and Harry finally have a much-needed conversation, the script incorporates an absurd bit of physical comedy that undermines the poignancy of their heart-to-heart. There's much about Song's movie that I enjoyed. The fizzy sequences of Lucy meeting one client after the next, inspired by the director's own experience as a matchmaker, remind me of classics such as Broadcast News; they offer a glimpse into a gig that consumes a person whole. Besides, there's a real pleasure in seeing Hollywood stars fall for each other. But in trying to both critique and poke fun at the costs of modern love, Materialists never coheres into an emotionally potent tale. To put it in Lucy's terms: The film is beautiful and smart, and it clearly contains enough appeal to make it stand out in the marketplace. It's just no unicorn.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Women want more rom-coms. Does 'Materialists' deliver?
Warning: This story contains spoilers for the movie Materialists. There should always be room for heart at the box office. Race cars, plane stunts and giant dinosaurs make entertaining spectacles, but for devotees of the rom-com genre, nothing compares to watching a love story unfold onscreen, especially one that leaves you saying, 'To me, you are perfect.' Hollywood has largely been filtering rom-coms into the streamer release bucket, like Renée Zellweger's Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Amy Schumer's Kinda Pregnant and Anne Hathaway's The Idea of You. In some cases, it makes sense: Bridget Jones author Helen Fielding called the franchise's fourth film 'a good movie to watch on the sofa.' However, recent history shows that when a romance-centered film is headed to the big screen, people — specifically women — will come. Case in point: 2023's Anyone but You, the sleeper hit starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, which gave the rom-com genre a jolt. Sure, people may have bought tickets for the fauxmance, but it proved that a love story on the big screen — one that's more self-aware and less about marriage — still sells. Same with It Ends With Us, starring now-litigants Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni — women flocked to see the romantic drama even as the film's marketing faced criticism for underplaying domestic violence themes. And now: Materialists — driven by Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans's love triangle, which examines modern relationships (for love or money?) and even delves into sexual assault — is performing above expectations at the box office. Over its opening weekend, just behind the live-action franchises Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon and ahead of action-film franchises Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning and Ballerina is where Materialists landed at the box office. Its success tells us that audiences are still hungry for romance, though maybe not the traditional, wrapped-in-a-bow, happily-ever-after, fairy-tale type. Materialists is being marketed as a rom-com, but it's not like When Harry Met Sally… and Notting Hill, with a tidy arc and predictable ending. It's a romantic dramedy with social commentary about today's dating culture, exploring whether Johnson's Lucy (a professional matchmaker) should pick Pascal's Harry (the wealthy private equity broker who can more than provide for her) or Evans's John (her broke but cute waiter/aspiring actor ex). And, again, a sexual assault is a plot point, though not involving the main characters directly. The film's original love story was the lure for filmgoers we talked to — even if some are disappointed it wasn't the escapist rom-com they expected. Hira Mustafa tells Yahoo Entertainment that she went to see it with eight friends after 'looking forward to the release for weeks.' She was hopeful 'it would be an entertaining watch — a fun, fresh take on a romantic comedy that would likely have a meaningful message we could discuss afterwards,' but felt it lacked real substance. 'I was open to a dramedy that wasn't necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, but beyond the genre, it felt like the romance itself was underdeveloped,' she says. Plus, 'they introduced a sexual assault storyline but never fully explored its purpose or impact, which was disappointing given how serious and nuanced that topic deserves to be handled.' As for the ending — Lucy forgoing money (Harry) for love (John) — she was disappointed. Mustafa, who panned the movie on TikTok, says it would have been better had John realized "that love isn't enough without action. So he steps up, gets a stable job, moves out and actively commits to building a balanced future with Lucy, recognizing that true partnership requires compromise." She's not alone. Viewers have been hotly debating the film's ending and whether Lucy did herself a disservice by picking the guy with a bunch of roommates. Moviegoer Audrey Atienza, who sees most new releases with her AMC movie subscription and shares her takes on TikTok, says films with romantic plots "definitely" get her to the theater, as this one did. She saw it with friends on a rainy New York night. "I don't like movies that stress me out," Atienza tells Yahoo Entertainment, "and usually romantic plots are a safe bet that they won't." Atienza said that Materialists was not "an Anyone But You-type of movie.' She found it "deep" in ways that some rom-coms historically aren't. She was surprised to overhear other people in the theater unhappy with the ending. 'Maybe I'm just a sucker for love, but I feel like the movie demonstrated why she is a better fit for the person she chose,' Atienza says. 'Some people have called this film 'broke men propaganda,' but I think that idea overlooks a really important detail established early on,' says Alexis Oteng, host of the ChickFlicks podcast (and on TikTok @thechickflicksshow). 'In a world where so many of us just want to feel like we matter, I think Lucy comes to realize that while she struggles with the idea of a life with John meaning she might not have all the luxuries she's dreamed of (a side of herself she both hates and feels ashamed of), he still finds it so easy to love her. And that matters.' She adds, 'The film reminds us there is immense value and rarity in having someone who can love us, even when we're showing the most shallow, insecure or vulnerable sides of ourselves." Jamie McAleney, who reviews films on TikTok, says the marketing for the film may have clouded expectations. "As an A24 lover and a huge fan of Celine Song's Past Lives, I knew going into this movie that it wasn't going to be the rom-com of the early 2000s that the marketing was angling toward, but I thought that choice of marketing was cheeky and cute,' says McAleney. 'I really expected others to get it, but I think it may have gone over some heads.' She expected Materialists 'to leave a lot of room for dialogue to land and not be afraid of the silences' as well as 'to take some heavier turns, be paced slowly and be a bit more cerebral than a traditional rom-com — and that's exactly what was delivered.' McAleney says instead of the film harkening back to old-school romantic films, it's looking ahead. 'I don't think that Materialists is trying to be a 'return to form' for the rom-com — it's sharper than that,' says McAleney. 'It's asking us to look in the mirror and confront our habits and 'wish lists' in modern dating. Song doesn't just give us romance — she gives us contradictions and social commentary. Makes us feel the love and question it at the exact same time." Oteng said the film's marketing — 'with the vibe of classic 2000s rom-coms' — made her want to see it. "I think out of the romance films we've seen come out in the 2020s, this one definitely rises to the top," she says. "It looks at dating and love in today's world in a way that feels both realistic and a little idealistic, that balances the two really well. I like that it uses the classic rom-com tropes we all know to pull you in, then flips them to question the ideas and expectations we've built around dating now." Yahoo News reporter Kaitlin Reilly, who has written about Materialists, says that having loved Song's 2023 rom-dram Past Lives, she was excited for her "take on modern dating" and "what people value in romantic relationships — the 'boxes' they want their partners to check — when, at the end of the day, love isn't actually math." Reilly says she spent an hour unpacking the film with her aunt afterward. "It really made me think," she adds. Atienza also deconstructed the film with her friends. She felt it "had a realistic take on dating and how it can feel like a business deal." Also, "how [someone] can be perfect 'on paper' (or a 'unicorn'), but that doesn't mean they're who you're meant to be with." Materialists is its own kind of "unicorn" — a romantic dramedy swimming against a sea of summer spectacles and sequels. According to a Yahoo News/YouGov Survey conducted May 22-27, 2025, none of the big-budget films rolling out this summer that we polled about was a slam-dunk reason to go to the movies. Out of Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning, Superman, Karate Kid: Legends, M3gan 2.0, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, The Naked Gun and Freakier Friday, those surveyed were most interested in Tom Cruise's hit — but only 13% of respondents said they were most excited to see it this summer. A staggering 46% said none of those films sparked their interest. Digging deeper into movie habits, 28% of respondents surveyed said the last time they had gone to the theater to see a movie was over five years ago. Of those polled, 61% said if a new movie they were excited to see came out, they'd be more likely to wait and stream it, compared to the 23% who would go to see it in theaters. With more viewing options than ever, Materialists shows that audiences are still showing up for something fresh, as they did in an even bigger way earlier this year with horror flick Sinners. But films with original concepts — meaning stories created from scratch, not based on another film/show/comic book/game/book/toy — have become less common. "I think it's hard when creative decisions are made by committee, and it's hard when creative decisions are made by people who don't even really watch movies or know anything about them, and that tends to be what's occurring a lot," Johnson said on Hot Ones when asked about Hollywood being so risk-averse. She continued, "When something does well, studios want to keep that going, so they remake the same things. But humans don't want that. They want fresh. They want to feel new things, experience new things, see new things." There's excitement and unpredictability in watching stories we haven't seen before, especially ones told by new and different voices beyond Hollywood's short list of mostly male directors. "I want original stories — full stop," McAleney says. "I want studios and production companies to take a shot on voices we don't get to hear from often and invest in emerging filmmakers.' And from the romantic genre, 'I love a good yearn,' she adds. 'Give us more yearning, please.' __________________ The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,560 U.S. adults interviewed online from May 22-27, 2025. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 election turnout and presidential vote, party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Party identification is weighted to the estimated distribution at the time of the election (31% Democratic, 32% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGov's opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.9%.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘28 Years Later' $5.8M, ‘Elio' $3M Previews – Friday AM Box Office
UPDATED FRIDAY AM AFTER EXCLUSIVE: Sony's 28 Years Later gobbled up $5.8M in previews Thursday night. That's an excellent preview number for a horror movie, especially in these times, besting the Thursday nights of Final Destination Bloodlines ($5.5M), Sinners ($4.7M), pre-Covid's A Quiet Place ($4.3M) and even post-Covid's Scream VI ($5.7M). The question is whether moviegoers, like the undead themselves, will continue to run to 28 Years Later. More from Deadline '28 Years Later' Review: Danny Boyle Delivers Severed Heads And Broken Hearts In His Gory Zombie-Horror Threequel What Are The Critics Saying About '28 Years Later'? Deadline On The Red Carpet: Aaron Taylor-Johnson On '28 Years Later's Brexit Nod, Danny Boyle Talks "The Growth" Of Horror, Jodie Comer On "Manifesting" A Movie Musical & Tom Rothman With An Actor Tip As we saw with the Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 68% last night, PostTrak audiences were also a hard crowd for this Danny Boyle movie giving it 3 stars and a 54% definite recommend. Men over 25 showed up at 52% and gave the zombie third chapter its best grades at 75%. Women over 25 were next at 27% (72% grade), followed by women under 25 at 13% (65%) and men under 25 at 9% (74%). Meanwhile, Disney/Pixar's Elio in total Wednesday and Thursday previews did $3M. The animated feature is booked in 3,750 theatres including 725 premium large format screens, 2,500+ 3D Screens and 175 D-Box/Motion screens. Elio, 28 Years Later and How to Train Your Dragon are sharing the PLFs, while Imax auditoriums will be held by the latter title. Those who watched Elio, are loving it with a 60% definite recommend from the general audience and 4 1/2 stars. Kids under 12, a near even split between boys and girls at 51%/49%, also think it's 4 1/2 stars. Parents, mostly Dads yesterday at 56%, gave it 4 stars. With yesterday being Juneteenth, a young federal holiday, distribution sources are always mixed on whether it's a big moviegoing day or not. Kids are already off from school. Yeah, but adults are off from work. While not massive, the day did have a pulse, check it out: Eight of the movies in the top 10 saw spikes in their daily grosses over Wednesday including How to Train Your Dragon (+15%), Materialists (+7%), Lilo & Stitch (+16%), Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning (+22%), Ballerina (+10%), Phoenician Scheme (+6%), and The Life of Chuck (+3%). Top 5 from yesterday: 1.) How to Train Your Dragon (Uni) 4,356 theaters, Thu $9.7M, Wk $123.4M/Wk 1 2.) Lilo & Stitch (Dis) 3,675 (-510) theaters, Thu $2.7M Wk $26M (-45%), Total $376.8M/Wk 4 3.) Materialists (A24) 2,844 theaters, Thu $1.6M, Wk $17.5M/Wk 1 4.) Mission: Impossible – Final Reckoning (Par) 2,942 theaters, Thu $1.5M, Wk $15.8M (-27%), Total $171.8M/Wk 4 5.) Ballerina (LG) 3,409 theaters, Thu $1.1M, $14.1M (-56%), Total $46.5M/Wk 2 EXCLUSIVE: Sony's 28 Years Later is coming in with a preview gross tonight that's well north of $5M, we are hearing from sources. But don't start comping it yet to New Line's box office surprise sequel, Final Destination: Bloodlines which did $5.5M in previews for a franchise best opening of $51.6M. Horror films are frontloaded, duh. Rotten Tomatoes audiences are being pretty hard on this Danny Boyle zombie movie at 67% despite critics giving the installment the best reviews the 23-year old franchise has ever seen at 92%. Final Destination: Bloodlines earned both great reviews and audience exits on Rotten Tomatoes respectively with 92% and 87%. Previews began at noon for 28 Years Later. Tracking spotted this viral infected undead post-apocalyptic movie at an opening between $28M-$30M. The movie reps a return for Boyle as director and Alex Garland as screenwriter after 2002's 28 Days Later. That movie opened to $10M back in the day at 1,261 theaters, while 28 Weeks Later, which was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, opened to $9.8M back in 2007 at 2,303 theaters. Meanwhile, Disney/Pixar's Elio after two nights of previews is looking to be around $2.5M-$3M. That's the amount of preview cash that Pixar's summer 2023 movie, Elemental, banked before an $11.7M Friday and $29.6M opening. Elio is hoping to clear a 3-day between $20M-$25M. No RT audience scores yet, but critics enjoyed it at 86% certified fresh. Those reviews are stronger than Elemental at 73% fresh which wind up with an audience score of 93% and a solid A CinemaScore. As we mentioned, the best advertisement for Elio is the movie itself. In a marketplace where it's hard to launch original animation, the hope is that the Adrian Molina-Madeline Sharafian-Domee Shi directed movie pulls an Elemental and posts some wild multiple of 5x or more (that pic ended its stateside run at $154.4M). As we reported previously, Universal/DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon is expected to hold the fort at No. 1 with a second weekend of $40M-plus. Through Wednesday, the Dean DeBlois directed live action take of his animated movie is up to $113.7M. Best of Deadline 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More 'Stick' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The Apple TV+ Golf Series 'Stick' Release Guide: When Do New Episodes Come Out?
Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I'm a matchmaker... here's what Dakota Johnson's movie Materialists gets wrong
Celine Song's romantic drama Materialists has proven to be an unexpectedly divisive movie - and it shone a spotlight on matchmakers and what they actually do. The film centers around Lucy, played by Dakota Johnson, a matchmaker living in New York City, who is caught between an old flame and new love interest, played by Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal. Professional matchmaker Maria Avgitidi, who has been been in the business for almost 20 years, told the Daily Mail that while there are many parts of the movie that are accurate, some are extremely far-fetched. 'In the trailer, people are listing off numbers, and that is very accurate,' she dished. 'People will come in, and they'll say, "I want [my man] to be this high. I want [him] to have a full head of hair. I want [him] to not have cats, because I'm allergic to cats," like that is very accurate in the initial call,' she acknowledged. However, Maria, who has around '4,000 marriages' under her belt, said her relationship wins are not as thoroughly celebrated as the matchmakers at Adore, the fictional service in the film. 'I don't have cake parties like they do in the trailer. That's never happened,' she laughed. Maria also shared that as a matchmaker, she doesn't attend the weddings on the couple's she set up. 'As a matchmaker, the job is first and second dates, and then goodbye,' she shared. 'It's now your job to be a good boyfriend, good girlfriend, whatever it is. 'I have been invited to several weddings, but at the same time there is this professional personal boundary that I don't want to cross.' 'I'm not your friend. I'm your service provider,' she declared. 'It's kind of like If you invited your personal trainer.' One thing Maria acknowledged that the film did get right was the burn-out rate of matchmakers. 'If you're a matchmaker, you have to discover what your emotional bandwidth is, and the kind of clients you can take,' she advised. And for those who hire a matchmaker, she stressed the importance of connecting with each other before you start looking for a partner. 'Your first match has to be with your matchmaker,' Maria pointed out. Lauren Daddis, a senior matchmaker at Three Day Rule said there were 'definitely' parts of the movie resonated with her, and other parts that were 'pure Hollywood.' Maria, who has around '4,000 marriages' under her belt, said her relationship wins are not as thoroughly celebrated as the matchmakers at Adore, the fictional service in the film I run a matchmaking service. These are red flags people miss - and green flags to help find love 'Some of the truths: I have a lot of high-achieving clients seeking love. Many successful people do turn to matchmaking because they're short on time, they value privacy and they want something more curated than the dating apps offer,' she explained. Lauren said the scenes between Lucy and her clients in the film struck a chord with her. 'It demonstrated the emotional complexity behind the scenes,' she continued. 'Even the most accomplished, successful, confident clients come with vulnerabilities, doubts and attachment issues - real matchmaking often involves helping clients move past these things,' the matchmaker pointed out. However there were a few parts that Lauren admitted made her want to 'crawl out my skin.' 'Every time Lucy said "You are going to meet the love of your life. I can promise you that,"' she reflected. 'The movie makes it seem like a perfect match is always one introduction away — in reality, it's often a process of learning, refinement, and growth,' she pointed out. 'Some matches hit quickly, but the real work is in setting the foundation for something that lasts.'
