Aahana Swrup
Directed by Numa Perrier, Netflix’s ‘The Perfect Find’ is a romantic comedy film set in New York’s world of high fashion. After Jenna Jones’s fashion career takes a dive following the public end of her decade-long relationship, she takes a year off to regroup. Now, a year later, Jenna is ready to step back into the game. However, after inadvertently falling in love with young and charming Eric, who also happens to be Jenna’s boss’s son, Jenna has to make a decision between forbidden love and her career.
With compelling performances by Gabrielle Union, Keith Powers, and Gina Torres, ‘The Perfect Find’ presents an entertaining feel-good story about finding love in unlikely places. If you’re wondering whether or not this film has any connection to reality, here is everything you need to know about the same!
The Perfect Find is Not a True Story
‘The Perfect Find’ is not based on a true story. The film, written by Leigh Davenport, is inspired by Tia Williams’s 2016 romance novel of the same name. Both the film and the book are founded on identical premises and center around a secret romance between an older woman and a younger man. Both stories are also deeply immersed in the fashion world, with the film managing to achieve a vivid imaginative representation of the same. However, when it comes to the portrayal of Jenna Jones’s character, the film noticeably pivots from Williams’s novel. At the starting line of her 40s, Jenna is presented as a mature, put-together woman with ambitions and a focus on her career.
Unlike her bookish counterpart, Union’s Jenna comes across as more confident and self-assured in her skill and abilities. The film’s narrative centers around Jenna’s storyline and explores her journey of self-discovery after she finds herself recreating her life from the ground up. As such, the film finds most of its sincerity through Jenna’s character and relies on her ability to resonate with the audience for its authenticity. Since screenwriter Davenport is most well-known for her female-centric show, ‘Run the World,’ it’s no surprise that she manages to depict an empowering and realistic portrayal of Jenna as an independent career-oriented woman.’
While discussing Jenna’s character in an interview with The Mary Sue, director Numa Perrier said, “For Gabrielle [Union], it was really about her wanting to show the other side of ambitious, you know, not just the cutthroat side but the vulnerable side, the softer side, the failure piece of it. What does failure look like? What does the next chapter look like after failure, so to speak.” Therefore by infusing Jenna’s character arc and storyline around such a universal experience, the film is able to humanize her character beyond the screen. Another aspect of the film that plays an instrumental role in its relatability and authenticity is the portrayal of African-American culture and “Black Joy.”
By focusing on African-American narratives as told through a woman’s experience, the film is able to connect with its audience genuinely and authentically. With ‘The Perfect Find,’ Union, a first-time producer on the film, wanted to create a story that would reflect the Hollywood of her dreams. Due to the same, she centered her work around African-American narratives that deliver unapologetic, original representation.
Ultimately, ‘The Perfect Find’ is not based on a true story. The film has roots in Tia Williams’s eponymous novel, but other than that, it’s a work of fiction shaped by Numa Perrier. With all the proper building blocks of classic romcoms, ‘The Perfect Find’ is a fictional story about love and life. As a side-effect of the genre, the film promises comedic, relatable, and light-hearted fun, with likable characters and a formulaic story structure.
Read More: Where Was Netflix’s The Perfect Find Filmed?
