This is the dating market: “Men are looking for youth, women are looking for a good income.”

When she was young, Celine Song worked for six months as a matchmaker. She worked at a sort of marriage agency and found matches for her clients. The filmmaker says: “During that time, I learned more about human beings than I have in my entire life, because people who want to find a boyfriend or girlfriend are more honest with their matchmaker than with their therapist.”

Now, Song has decided to bring to the big screen everything he learned about human nature in those six months, and the result is The Materialists, which screened at the Atlàntida Mallorca Film Fest and will hit Spanish screens on August 14. It could be one of the films of the year, thanks to its dialogue—because it shows how difficult it can be to find the perfect partner—and its cast, led by Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans.

“No one questions the value of a Ferrari, but many doubt the value of love, because they don't see it.”

Johnson plays Lucy, who works for a marriage agency. She's the star of the company, having managed to get many of her clients married. But in the blacksmith's house, it's a wooden spoon: Lucy's love life is nonexistent. She had a boyfriend, John, played by Evans, whom she loved, but she dumped him. The guy didn't earn a dime, and living in New York without money is mission impossible. Suddenly, Lucy meets Harry (Pascal) and believes she's found the perfect man. Harry is what the company calls "a unicorn": a tall, handsome, educated, and very, very rich man.

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What Lucy and her clients are looking for is love, and yet, "when they try to describe someone they want to marry and grow old together, they use mathematical language. They talk about height, weight, income, or age," says the filmmaker, who wrote the script based on her own experience, in an interview with La Vanguardia .

“I had just gotten married at the time, and I was very clear that marriage and love have nothing to do with income, age, height, or weight,” Song recalls. But it seems Lucy’s clients don’t know what true love is. “Men want slim, young women. Women look for men with a good income who, if possible, aren’t bald or pot-bellied and are over 6’1″. So, to have a good romance, you need money, since part of that process involves giving a Cartier or a Birkin bag,” she adds.

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You also have to get physically up to speed to be young, slim, and tall enough to have a good head of hair: "Everyone knows that women take care of themselves; perhaps we could say they commodify themselves to enter the dating market. But men are not exempt from anything, and although it's not spoken about so openly, they also objectify themselves and undergo painful procedures to measure up," as is the case with one of the characters who has undergone surgery to become taller and thus attract more women.

“I'm not a commodity, I'm a person,” is for Song “the most important line in the film.” Because the director is convinced that true love exists: “No one questions the value of a Ferrari, but many doubt the value of love, because you don't see it, and when it happens, it's something fortuitous, a miracle you can't afford. A Cartier ring can be paid for; you see its price, you know what you have to do to get it, that's why it seems real, much more real than when you look at another person and realize you might have feelings for them.”

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Song concludes: “It has been a pleasure to work with Johnson, Pascal and Evans because they are three renowned actors who have understood like no one else the message I wanted to convey with The Materialists , which can be summed up in that key phrase: 'I am not a commodity, I am a person.'”