Dakota Johnson and the Art of Disdain
Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 3:00PM 
There are few things more enjoyable than watching Dakota Johnson take the piss out of one of her movies. It's even better when it's not simply done in the promo tour but within the flick itself. Some might find it disrespectful, but such are the privileges of our nepo baby extraordinaire. She's got enough bad reviews to satisfy those who dislike her approach and even some Razzie nominations to go with them. However, I'd argue Johnson's bizarre deliveries, the projections of disdain for bad scripts, might be a kind of secret weapon of hers. There comes a point where one starts to feel a kinship with the actress or even a sense that she's fixing rotten characterizations by simply not taking them too seriously…
The first Fifty Shades of Grey movie is the primary example to prove the merit of Johnson's artful ironies. Subsequent efforts would snuff out anything interesting in the original project, jettisoning Sam Taylor-Johnson and her crew while also acquiescing to the author's demands. But in that movie, Dakota Johnson delivers a performance of unusual shrewdness, taking moments that read as earnest on paper and embodying them with a humorous twist. At times, Anastasia Steele appears on the verge of laughing at her own awkward sayings, and she's always ready to de-escalate the melodrama. She feels like a proverbial needle popping an overinflated - mayhap oversexed - balloon.
Is it sabotage, or is it genius? It depends on the scene, but for most of that failed provocation's runtime, Johnson is a box full of surprises, most of them good. As said before, the actress lost that spark in the sequels, playing it all straight and sincere to the viewer's significant loss. Thankfully, for fans of Johnson's thrilling half-ass-ery, she's at it again in Madame Web, the latest Sony attempt to capture that MCU spark. As always, they have failed, and the internet was quick to turn the flop into a meme factory cum punching bag. Now, the movie's no good – cutting, color grading, and sound are outrageously misconceived – but it's also far from a Morbius-level catastrophe.
Part of it stems from a taste for Y2K nostalgia, how its flaws almost work like throwbacks to another, very different time in Hollywood's embrace of superhero cinema. But Dakota Johnson also deserves some praise. When faced with the early stages of her character's prescience, she looks giddy to undercut the wacky concept with those awkward tics of hers. And yet, when the narrative demands a more grounded approach, she manages to negotiate that variation with more skill than most are giving her credit. While Johnson has been dismissive of the picture throughout its press tour, I don't think Madame Web deserves all that scorn.
Fair is fair, it's a bad picture. However, it could be so much worse. We all know it could. At least I had fun with it, which isn't something I'll say about most recent comic book movies. Thank heaven for Johnson's unhinged energy.
Madame Web is available to rent and purchase on the major platforms.
Reader Comments (6)
She is a lot like her mother acting wise,brilliant when with an inventive director or totally lost and usually bad.
Dakota's been ok in smaller films and that Ellen takedown should live on forever but she desperately needs her own Something Wild.
The Melanie Griffith comparisons should be very welcome! I adore them both.
I get more pleasure out of Working Girl and Something Wild than I do from some more "prestigious" actress' entire careers.
I think she needs a Hitchcock to bring out the best in her, like Grandma. I can see her as a 21st century Marnie, or fleeing vengeful birds.
Then again, maybe give her a female buddy cop show set in South Florida…
I like her weird persona a lot, but I can't say I've ever seen a good performance by her. I think she was by fr the worst thing about A bigger splash, and also not memorable in Suspiria, which is sad given what other actresses could have done with that director.
Still I think she's here to stay, so we better get used to it. Just hope she gets better at her actual job.
I've liked some of her performances. She worked well in both the High Note and Bad Times at the El Royale. I thought she was particularly impressive in The Lost Daughter, and she really left an impression (more than Buckley for me, actually).
However, her awkward tics and disdain are hard to take. She seems like the worst of millennial hipster culture from the late-2000s. It's just an affect that I have a bad reaction, and one that feels forced and uninspired.
I also think it's not the best thing to do when you're on the top of a call sheet. Plenty of A-listers are in bad films, but make them work as best they can (i.e., Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride). To me, it just seems like Johnson gives up when she's said yes to a project but doesn't like the script, and resorts to her one trick.
I do like her as an actress as she is impressive in films like her work with Luca Guadagnino and Bad Times at the El Royale though those Fifty Shades films are horrible. She needs to pick better films as well as stop coming off like a bitch at times as there was a moment at a red carpet at the Oscars where Melanie Griffith was talking and saying something where Dakota screamed MOM! as I felt so bad for Melanie.