I have slept a little on Dakota Johnson over this last decade. Undeniably attractive but prone to making bad movies. Some like Fifty Shades / Madam Web seem very unlikely to ever have had any potential artistic merit. Others (The Materialists / Suspiria /Persuasion) on paper should be legitimately worthwhile yet the final products proved marmite. And then there’s that nepotism ick. Yet she is quite magnetic even in trash and compromised fumbles. Clean, classically beautiful, expressive and surprisingly committed to full frontal nudity in this prudish day and age… She is a bit like a Joan Fontaine or Deborah Kerr who likes to “get them out”. There’s something about Dakota well worth investing into. Her best performances have been in supporting roles (The Lost Daughter / Bad Times At El Royale / The Peanut Butter Falcon) but we can’t be too far off from her picking the right projects and the movie going public buying tickets for her name above the title. It feels like we are on the cusp of that happening.

Madame Web (2024)

S.J. Clarkson directs Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney and Isabela Merced in this superhero spin-off movie set before Peter Parker was born where a psychic paramedic must keep other women with spider-sense alive.

… I think. A movie scripted through conflicting studio executive notes. This is bland gubbins which goes through strange mercurial motions. Leaves no lasting impact apart from how bland and formulaic something so inessential and unwanted can get. A Spider-Man spin off explicitly without Spider-Man based around a character not even the fan boys have heard of. Johnson is on autopilot here and was quite open that she wanted a paycheck throughout the press tour. It is an absolute narrative mess, brimming with strange alienating choices. But so is Disclosure Day, so optics are everything.

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Persuasion (2022)

Carrie Cracknell directs Dakota Johnson, Cosmo Jarvis and Richard E. Grant in this period adaptation of Jane Austen given a post-modern spin.

Never watched Fleabag so if this is “Jane Austen post-Fleabag” as oft criticised, then I don’t care about the lift. Characters have been self aware and chatting to cameras in movies since before anyone cast in this was even born. Hello, Alfie! What this does have is a compelling romance and beautiful dresses. Mia McKenna-Bruce’s self absorbed monster of a sister is a whole lotta fun. Johnson feels super comfortable in this witty, clever mode.

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Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015)

Sam Taylor Johnson directs Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan and Jennifer Ehle in this big budget adaptation of the steamy S&M bestselling novel.

A confession. I went to the multiplex to try this on release. The first five minutes were so awful I walked out. Something I rarely do. Belated second try wasn’t much better. An endurance test with shadowy flesh flashes. There are one or two neat scenes. The contract negotiation set piece sees Johnson bring some cheeky facial expressions that skewer the seriousness of the unreal dialogue. They’re both good looking kids. You’d be happy just watching them have some nice missionary for two hours. But it all looks too cold and drab to really even work as wealth porn. Then ends with nothing resolved. Two more films? No thank you! Good lace ‘good girl’ panty and breathy basic bitch soundtrack choices. Never let the author have any creative control over the movie adaptation. See also Harry Potter.

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A Bigger Splash (2015)

Luca Guadagnino directs Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts and Ralph Fiennes in this arthouse hang out flick where a famous rock star’s vacation in Italy is disrupted by the unexpected visit of an old friend and his daughter.

Either this or The Lost Daughter is Johnson’s best on screen acting. She’s super enigmatic in A Bigger Splash as the jailbait interloper to all the middle aged sexual power plays. In full honesty all the leads give career bests in the earlier wild hangout scenes. It is almost a shame when a mystery plot intrudes in the second half. I love Fiennes and his “Leonard Rossiter on all the drugs” schtick here. We are talking the stuff of untethered acting dreams. The first half of this is a five star experience.

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