Dakota Johnson’s movies lack her quirky charm.
Sometimes, movie stars are a lot like onions. And no, I’m not just stealing lines from Shrek. I’m not talking about “layers,” though plenty of actors have those. I mean onions in the sense that they can go with almost anything. Certain actors – think Florence Pugh or Jesse Plemons – have this universal quality. Drop them into a rom-com, a crime thriller, Shakespeare, or a Guy Ritchie caper, and they’ll somehow fit right in. They just work anywhere.
Dakota Johnson is not one of those actors.
The 35-year-old daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith has carved out one of the more peculiar careers in Hollywood right now. She shot to fame in 2015 as Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades of Grey – a glossy, steamy box-office smash that critics largely dismissed as fluff. Johnson’s performance was better than the material, but she still got stuck carrying much of the criticism.
Since then, her career has swung between intriguing highs – like her work with director Luca Guadagnino on A Bigger Splash and Suspiria – and some spectacular lows, such as last year’s Madame Web. That Marvel misfire was so bafflingly bad it almost tipped into “so bad it’s good” territory. Now comes Materialists, which unfortunately lands closer to the “low” end of the spectrum.
The thing is, Johnson’s problem isn’t that she’s a bad actor. Far from it. Her voice is soft but precise, almost like she’s whispering into a microphone for an ASMR video. With the wrong script, that quality can read as flat or monotonous. But when you see her out of character – like in interviews – you realize it’s actually part of a dry, sly sense of humor. She can be delightfully prickly, even a bit wicked. That’s the Dakota Johnson Hollywood hasn’t figured out how to use.
On paper, Materialists seemed like a perfect fit. Directed by Celine Song, whose 2023 debut Past Lives was nominated for an Oscar, it was billed as a smart romantic drama with Johnson front and center, alongside Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal. Johnson plays an elite matchmaker for wealthy singles – a character who’s supposed to be complex, abrasive, and unapologetic. It should’ve been juicy. Instead, it’s undercooked.
This is now the second summer in a row where Johnson’s big movie has disappointed. She’s not one of those actors who can emerge unscathed from a bad film. She’s already picked up three Golden Raspberry awards, including one for Madame Web.
Ironically, in the lead-up to Materialists, Johnson proved exactly why she’s worth watching. Her episode of Hot Ones was one of the funniest in the show’s history – sharp, weird, and totally herself even while sweating through spicy wings. A joint interview with Pascal for Vogue gave us viral clips of their playful back-and-forth. And her Vanity Fair lie detector interview? Instant classic. (She’s admitted she lies to the press regularly – and convincingly.)
In all of these appearances, she was dry, eccentric, and completely magnetic. So the question becomes: when will Hollywood actually cast her as a character like that?
Her only major TV role was back in 2012–13 on the short-lived sitcom Ben and Kate. Many actors have turned to television to find richer, riskier roles. Johnson has stayed committed to the big screen, which gives her a certain old-school movie star aura. She’s not a “streaming star” – that new, often less glamorous category. But movie stardom only works if the movies rise to the occasion.
Dakota Johnson has shown us who she is – sly, funny, and a little dangerous. All she needs now is a script willing to let her play that person on screen.