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Warning: This article contains spoilers for Materialists. If you haven’t seen it yet, the film is currently playing in theaters.
Celine Song’s 2025 movie release, Materialists, is the kind of glossy, high-concept New York romance that begs to be dissected over cocktails—or by someone who actually does the job it depicts. Enter Maria Avgitidis, a fourth-generation professional matchmaker and dating coach based in NYC. Avgitidis just shared her thoughts some very candid thoughts about Dakota Johnson’s latest film. Needless to say, folks, she did not hold back.
Maria Avgitidis caught up with People to discuss the buzzy new film. During the chat, she made it clear that she wasn’t thrilled by what she saw on screen. According to the professional, there isn’t much in the new A24 movie that resonates with her or her work. As she tells it:
I don’t see myself in this. I was trying to warn some matchmakers: ‘I know you’re about to throw a whole movie screening for this. Tread carefully.’ I don’t know what else to tell you.
In the film, Dakota Johnson plays Lucy, a high-paid matchmaker to New York’s elite who has grown disillusioned with love, dating and her own life choices. There’s a love triangle between her, her old boyfriend, John (Chris Evans), and a new suave multimillionaire named Henry Castillo — who’s played by everyone’s daddy, Pedro Pascal.
There’s algorithm talk, and there’s some big drama that takes the film from some of the best rom-com territory into something more than a romantic comedy and a little darker. Writer-director Celine Song based the premise on six months she once spent working at a real-life matchmaking service, but Avgitidis, who’s been in the game for nearly two decades, says the reality is very different in various respects.
On the one hand, Materialists has been getting rave reactions from film critics. However, the film apparently showcases aspects of the matchmaking profession that don’t seemingly ring true anymore. For instance, Maria Avgitidis had this to say about whether matchmakers actually hand out business cards as Lucy does in the movie:
Maybe that happened before 2008, but… I let people come to me. There is a stigma with matchmakers that only desperate people will use them, and that’s not true. I have always taken the inbound marketing approach. Even before social media, I was out at bars, and I would use the Foursquare app and I called myself Matchmaker Maria, so people knew ‘there’s a matchmaker in the room, let me go talk to her.’ But that chasing someone down on the street, that’s not something that I’ve ever done. I do know certain matchmakers do it. And they do it on LinkedIn.
The interview took a more serious turn when Avgitidis addressed the film’s central crisis: a client is sexually assaulted on a date set up by Lucy. The matchmaker’s response? A notebook with barely three lines of info scribbled down. For the love industry veteran, that moment wasn’t just dramatic, it was professionally offensive. “You didn’t do your job. You set up this person with a stranger,” she said. “I’ve fired employees for less.”
And the idea that this kind of situation might be common? Flat-out false, according to the industry veteran. “I’ve never had that happen,” she stated, adding that something that serious would send shockwaves through the matchmaking industry. “This would be a thing we’d be discussing at our next trade association meeting.”
Beyond the plot twists and dramatics, Maria Avgitidis had a bigger issue with how Materialists portrayed the role of a matchmaker. Sure, she acknowledged that burnout is part of the job, and dealing with clients’ expectations and emotional baggage isn’t exactly light work. However, in her view, anyone who becomes jaded or cynical about love probably shouldn’t be in the profession to begin with. This line of work, she argued, demands optimism and emotional resilience, not bitterness.
What bothered her most wasn’t the film’s liberties with reality, but its apparent lack of soul. To her, matchmaking isn’t just about algorithms or client rosters; it’s about building relationships and fostering a sense of community. That’s the legacy she inherited from generations of matchmakers in her family, and it’s the core of how she operates today.
Materialists is now playing in theaters, but don’t go in expecting a “silly rom-com” because it has a lot more going on than that. As for Maria Avgitidis’ book, Ask a Matchmaker: Matchmaker Maria’s No-Nonsense Guide to Finding Love, it’s available now wherever you purchase your reading material.
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