On Sunday I took myself, with a slight hangover, to see a preview screening of Materialists, the long-awaited new film by Celine Song. Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a matchmaker with a talent for pairing her exacting clients with someone who ticks most of their boxes and is also likely to accept them. She is less cupid, more market analyst – capable of seeing through her singletons’ self-serving bluster and spin to appraise their actual worth – then matching it with someone of equivalent value.
A thirtysomething woman of only average good looks, for instance, can’t hope to land a “unicorn” – a 6ft-tall high earner with his original hairline. Unicorns want to date twentysomethings – and they can get them, too.
