FADE IN:

INT. NEW YORK CITY

Matchmaker DAKOTA JOHNSON sits down with client ZOË WINTERS.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Disappointing news, Zoë. It turns out I fixed you up with a shallow asshole.

ZOË WINTERS

But he only makes slightly above the income needed to rent a New York apartment with a fridge that works! How can he be shallow?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Well, we can't catch everything in the questionnaire. But you're still best off dating the guys I find for you. You won't find anyone better than me at marrying sad women to rich dudes.

ZOË WINTERS

Yeah, weren't you married once to some guy whose only redeeming quality was obscene wealth? What happened to him?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Anything you've heard about "suspected foul play" and "traces of tetrododoxin" is a lie.

She goes to the wedding of another client, LOUISA JACOBSON.

LOUISA JACOBSON

I don't know if I can go through with this, Dakota. It just hit me now that nothing is binding me to this rich dude except the seething urge to one-up other women.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Yeah? What's wrong with that?

LOUISA JACOBSON

Well, when I met you, you gave me this whole speech about love and commitment and building a future and--

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Oh, yeah, that's just marketing boilerplate for the website. Here's the truth: Now you can beg and you can plead, but you can't see the light, cuz the boy with the cold hard cash is ALWAYS Mister Right.

LOUISA JACOBSON

(nods slowly)

Cuz we are living in a material world.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

And you are a material girl. Now get out there and bride those other women right in the face.

The WEDDING happens, or doesn't, whatever. The point is, PEDRO PASCAL is there.

PEDRO PASCAL

I'd also like to sign up for your matchmaking services.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

You? YOU?

PEDRO PASCAL

Yes, the general population already wants to have sex with me, but it's hard to find true love among every human being on the planet. Of course, if YOU want to have sex with me...

CHRIS EVANS

Hey Dakota! It's me, your dirt-broke aspiring-actor ex who you dumped for being dirt-broke!

DAKOTA JOHNSON

(gives PEDRO a pleading look)

PEDRO PASCAL

(gives CHRIS a pointed look)

CHRIS EVANS

Right. Sorry to bother you.

(leaves)

(quickly returns)

Just for the record, I also want to have sex with you.

PEDRO PASCAL

Look, the lady made it clear that--

CHRIS EVANS

I wasn't talking to her.

INT. MUCH BETTER RESTAURANTS THAN CHRIS COULD GET INTO

PEDRO wines and dines DAKOTA all over town.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

This is all very nice, Pedro, but you already paid the five-figure retainer for my matchmaking services. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear you only paid that just to have an excuse to take me out. And that would be ludicrous, because I'm nowhere near beautiful and sophisticated enough for a man of your caliber, and certainly not self-confident enough to believe I ever could be.

(takes a breath)

Okay, I'm done.

PEDRO PASCAL

Thank God. Now I didn't think I'd ever have to sell a relationship with me to anyone, but here goes: As much as you are beautiful enough and then some, I think your intelligence and ambition makes us well-suited in a deeper way, one that could last our entire lives, and that's exactly the kind of romance I'm looking for.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

...Damn, that was good. REALLY good. Is there anything at all that you don't do extremely well?

PEDRO PASCAL

As long as you don't put me up against another Icelandic strongman, no.

They have off-screen SEX.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Off-screen? Really?! I may have had to live through three entire movies of on-screen sex with a humanoid roll of wall-to-wall loop pile carpeting, but I could have handled this!

DIRECTOR CELINE SONG

We just don't have the time. I have to make room for all my actors to pause for a full 15 seconds between each other's lines.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Why? Are you trying to balance out Greta Gerwig?

INT. DAKOTA'S OFFICE

DAKOTA meets with her boss, MARIN IRELAND.

MARIN IRELAND

So, it turns out that next guy you set up with Zoë is an even bigger asshole than the last guy. As in, the biggest asshole a guy could possibly be. As in, such an asshole that he should be working in the White House this year.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

You mean...

MARIN IRELAND

Yeah. THAT kind of asshole. The kind we apparently have no mechanism to screen out.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

(stands up)

I should go see her.

MARIN IRELAND

Uh, best avoided. Her exact words were:

(actual line)

"You set me up with that man only because you think I'm worthless. Worthless merchandise. To pawn off to anyone who'd take it. Fuck you. Pimp."

(/actual line)

In case there's any ambiguity, this is one of those situations where "pimp" isn't a compliment.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

So am I fired?

MARIN IRELAND

What? Of course not. We're all heterosexual women here. Once in a while we'll meet a man who sucks that hard. That's life.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

That's the most depressing fucking thing I've ever heard. I need to rethink all my life choices now.

MARIN IRELAND

Well, be quick about it. That reality will go down a lot easier once everyone sees you in a happy relationship with the only man on Earth who everyone agrees is better choice than the bear.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

What about Tom Hanks?

MARIN IRELAND

Fine, one of the two men.

INT. SHITTY COMMUNITY THEATRE

DAKOTA and PEDRO go to see CHRIS's play.

CHRIS EVANS

"Ours was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber. She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck, her hair twinkling like the crystals in Ivana Trump's chandelier, her teeth white and snappy like high-starch boxers. We had but one last remaining night together, so we embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white."

PEDRO PASCAL

(whispering)

Will I be less perfect if I stop pretending this isn't the most agonizing experience of my life?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

(whispering)

No. I'm sorry I brought you here. Wanna go fuck in the bathroom?

PEDRO PASCAL

(whispering)

Sure.

Their DEPARTURE prompts the entire AUDIENCE to give up and leave too. CHRIS jumps offstage and catches up with DAKOTA.

CHRIS EVANS

So, Dakota, how'd you like my performance? Enough to regret that you let my lack of money interrupt our otherwise perfect love all those years ago?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

No. Not in the least littlest way.

CHRIS EVANS

You sure? I mean, I'm following my passion, even if the only place it's going is a dive bar in Hell's Kitchen, and this guy...

PEDRO PASCAL

(waits)

DAKOTA JOHNSON

(waits)

CHRIS EVANS

Obviously I can't finish that sentence the way I'd like to. He checks all your boxes. He checks all ANYONE's boxes. I should just stop pining for you right now and hope to meet my own... I dunno, who's the female equivalent of him? Carrie Coon?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

That's a good idea. In fact, let me share some wisdom from my recent giant screw-up: The most important box to check of all is "not an unholy piece of shit who makes you feel like a piece of shit in turn."

PEDRO PASCAL

Wait, what giant screw-up?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

(laughs nervously)

Whaaat? Who said anything about a giant screw-up? Come on, let's get out of here before someone else says a line they shouldn't.

(pulls him away)

PEDRO PASCAL

No, seriously, what giant screw-up? Why could you tell Chris about that and not me?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

...I have no idea. You've been wonderfully understanding ever since we met. You'd probably offer to have the guy at the center of the screw-up stabbed with a poisoned eight-foot spear. I could tell you anything.

PEDRO PASCAL

Of course you could. Here, I'll start: I got leg-lengthening surgery to make myself taller.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

(silent)

PEDRO PASCAL

Okay, I can tell by your face where this is going, and let me just remind you that you'd be INSANE to let it go there. I'm taking you on your dream vacation. I have a ring in my suitcase. You saw it. It was nice. Don't pass that up just because my height is lab-grown and not natural.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

(sighs)

It's not that.

PEDRO PASCAL

Then what? Am I an unholy piece of shit?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

No! God, no. You're a godly slab of churrasco by anyone's measure. This is about me and my obsession with box-checking. It just hasn't made me love you enough. And it hasn't made you love me enough either, not really.

PEDRO PASCAL

(rubs temples)

I'm lost. What is it we're missing here? Some sort of magical emotional certainty that overrides all notions of compatibility? The certainty that makes people double down on their boxes when they haven't felt it?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Yes, that.

PEDRO PASCAL

I thought I set expectations way too high just by being myself!

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Well, evidently we needed to set them even higher.

INT. CHRIS'S SHITTY APARTMENT

DAKOTA shows up.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

This a bad time?

CHRIS EVANS

No, not at all. I was just yelling at one of my roommate for not washing his pubes off the soap. What's up?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Well, it turns out Pedro isn't all that.

CHRIS EVANS

Come on.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Okay, of course he is. But something was missing, so I dumped him. I think I may be able to find it by getting back together with you. I was way too logical about relationships before, but now I'm swinging all the way in the other direction.

CHRIS EVANS

Even though I'm still dirt-broke, my living situation is awful, I act in terrible plays, all my clothes are 15 years old on average, I think it's a good idea to drive my equally aging car in NYC on a daily basis, I'm regularly exposed to two other guys' bodily discharge, my eyes are kind of beady, and the best vacation I can give you is crashing someone else's wedding on the outskirts of Poughkeepsie?

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Would you believe me if I said I felt that magical emotional certainty with you?

CHRIS EVANS

Honestly? No. But I've felt it with you for the past God knows how many years since you dumped me. I'll take whatever scraps you're offering if you agree to take whatever scraps I can afford to offer.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Can we at least get a Swiffer for the discharge?

CHRIS EVANS

That's too expensive.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

Then we'll wear plastic shoe covers.

They get back together. PEDRO keeps paying DAKOTA her retainer, but this time he really means IT. ZOË forgives DAKOTA and returns to BLIND DATING. MARIN promotes DAKOTA. CHRIS gets a good enough DAY JOB to buy a STRING MOP.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

You know, I learned something today. Literally anything is better than not being part of a couple. That is what you were trying to say, right, Celine?

DIRECTOR CELINE SONG

Well, from my perspective, what you all should learn is that we should stop measuring our value by shallow things, like our partner's wealth and height and number of passport stamps, and instead focus on important things, like how many times he can say the word "love" in one reunion speech.

DAKOTA JOHNSON

So... yes.

DIRECTOR CELINE SONG

(pauses)

Yes.

END