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Are Boston’s matchmakers seeing a bump in business from ‘Materialists’?
“It was very one dimensional. There wasn't any coaching," one matchmaker said about the movie.
Tall or even taller? Lawyer or doctor? These are the age-old questions plaguing women in the new movie “Materialists,” starring Dakota Johnson as a chic matchmaker handling clients who want the impossible.
While the concept of matchmaking might seem a bit old-fashioned, “Materialists” is in part bringing the industry to the mainstream and boosting some Boston-based matchmaking services.
What does a matchmaker actually do?
Single people can hire matchmakers to set them up on planned dates, including second or third dates. A matchmaker is also like a coach, working with clients to find out what they’re looking for in a relationship and how to be successful in one. Some meet their life partners, and others simply become more successful in dating, Boston-based matchmakers told Boston.com.
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In “Materialists,” Johnson’s character, Lucy, is a wildly successful matchmaker. She has intuition, and nine clients’ weddings to show for it. She’s providing a high-end service, the movie makes it seem, and is tasked with handling wildly unrealistic standards — women who only want to meet rich, tall men and rich men who want to meet much younger, thin women.
“It felt like a very binary decision that a person had to make,” Adam Cohen-Aslatei, CEO of nationwide matchmaking service Three Day Rule, said about the film. “Am I going to find someone that is wealthy or someone that I love? And when you use a matchmaker, you’re finding the whole package.”
How did ‘Materialists’ compare to real matchmaking?
The movie — purportedly based on filmmaker Celine Song’s own experience as a matchmaker — takes place in New York. Some Boston matchmakers say they’ve seen an uptick interest in their services. And, they say the movie got some things right — and others disastrously wrong.
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Jill Vandor, a longtime Boston matchmaker, works with high-net worth clients for her business, Allure Matchmaking, as well as with a larger pool of clientele through Lunch Dates. Vandor declined to comment on the price of her services.
While Vandor said she doesn’t count how many relationships she’s set up that lead to marriage, she sometimes attends and has even officiated the wedding of a couple she introduced.
“But, I’m not gonna buy myself a cake,” Vandor said, referring to a celebration Johnson’s character has in the film. “It’s not just about getting somebody on a date, because anybody can date just to date. That’s not the goal. It’s to get into a healthy relationship.”
In the film, Johnson’s character has a reckoning with her job when one of her clients is sexually assaulted. Multiple matchmakers told Boston.com that an incident like that is not at all common in their industry. Cohen-Aslatei said dating apps are more dangerous for women than dates coordinated through a matchmaker.
“Twenty-five years I’ve been doing this, and not only has that never happened to myself, anything remotely close to that… (and as) part of a network of 400 matchmakers I’ve never heard of it ever happening,” Vandor said.
Matchmakers see renewed interest
Cohen-Aslatei is a Harvard Business School graduate, where he initially got into the business side of dating apps. But, Three Day Rule is a matchmaking service, not a dating app, complete with dating coaches and a personal matchmaker.
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As in the film, using a matchmaking service is not cheap. Three Day Rule packages start at $5,900, with one package that includes perks like a private three-person matchmaking team, “concierge-level date planning,” and a 3-carat diamond engagement ring — for $1 million. Singles can also join the company’s free database to be potential dates for its clients.
“Materialists” might be the cause of a record increase in both clients and additions to the database in May and June, Cohen-Aslatei posited.
“This movie did make matchmaking become mainstream,” he said.
Vandor agreed that “Materialists” could ignite interest in the industry, but said her clients “like the confidentiality and the privacy of it all.”
Three Day Rule is one of the largest matchmaking services in the country, Cohen-Aslatei said, with close to a thousand clients. About 12 percent are based in Boston, one of their cities with a clientele that skews younger, the executive said.
“They don’t want to delay the process. They want to find the right person, and if they don’t have someone in their network, they’re willing to invest and use a matchmaking service,” Cohen-Aslatei said.
Is matchmaking the future of dating?
Wade Kyle, of The Magical Matchmaker, specifically works with the LGBTQIA+ community in the Northeast. His service contract starts at $6,000 for four months.
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“Materialists” appears to be more about the large, corporatized world of straight matchmaking, he said. Johnson’s character acted unprofessionally when checking in to see how first dates went, he said, and her service “was very one dimensional. There wasn’t any coaching.”
“When I was working with straight people, that was a little bit of my experience, focus on the height, the body type, the income, the looks, especially on the male side, they were always hung up on those things,” Kyle said. “What she didn’t do was, she didn’t really push back whenever the people would say those things.”
While queer people aren’t necessarily hung up on deadlines associated with certain societal norms like marriage or children, Kyle said, they can turn to matchmaking to reach other goals.
“They still want to get into a long term relationship. They just want to try something different. What I find a lot with queer people is that they’re meeting a lot of people, and a lot of those relationships are short term,” Kyle said. “They are looking for meaningful connection. It just is defined a little differently.”
Despite the current reign of dating apps, matchmakers said they see their service as the future.
“All age groups don’t want to be swiping anymore, and they like the fact that we are (a) completely offline matchmaking service and that we do all the work for our clients,” Vandor said. “It’s actually a pretty big world out there, in the world of matchmaking these days, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.”
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