Dakota Johnson's dry delivery lets sensible questions make solemn people look faintly ridiculous. We rate her wit and coolness; we are less persuaded when a film asks that coolness to carry a love story.
Fi1m perspective
In the contract discussions in Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), Dakota Johnson makes Anastasia Steele sound like the only person asking sensible questions. She allows the proposals to seem faintly ridiculous without dismissing Anastasia's curiosity about them. We laughed because her practical questions made Christian's solemnity seem sillier. It is a good performance in a disappointing film, and it shows how useful Johnson can be when a script badly needs someone capable of seeing the joke.
Director Sam Taylor-Johnson gives that curiosity room in the awkward first meeting, but does not consistently explore what Anastasia enjoys about Christian beyond his attention. Opposite Jamie Dornan's fixed seriousness, Johnson supplies much of the pleasure herself. There is only so much an actor can do when conversations become less revealing the longer they continue. The courtship remains repetitive, despite her efforts to draw a response from him.
Small roles, including The Social Network (2010), preceded the breakthrough of Fifty Shades of Grey. Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria (2018) marked a turn towards arthouse work, followed by independent films including The Lost Daughter (2021) and Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022). The studio work has continued alongside them, including the superhero lead in Madame Web (2024). Stories about women discovering what they want from relationships recur through the work, giving her coolness different things to express.
Celine Song puts that coolness to precise use in Materialists (2025), casting Johnson as Lucy, a matchmaker who has made her voice a sales tool. At dinner with Harry, played by Pedro Pascal, she assesses his value as a prospective partner without dropping her professional manner. Johnson's quick, flat delivery makes the exchange funny and uncomfortable: Lucy is assessing herself as well. But the scenes with Chris Evans do not persuade us that these people once had a damaging relationship, and the writing has not earned the feeling it eventually asks for. For Johnson's dry humour, try Materialists, with modest expectations of the romance.
Biography
Dakota Mayi Johnson is an American actress. Born on 4 October 1989 in Austin, Texas, she is the daughter of actors Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and the granddaughter of actress Tippi Hedren. She made her film debut at the age of ten in Crazy in Alabama (1999).
After early supporting roles, including in The Social Network (2010), Johnson gained prominence as Anastasia Steele in the Fifty Shades film trilogy (2015–2018). She has since appeared in films including How to Be Single (2016), Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019), The Lost Daughter (2021), Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022), Madame Web (2024) and Materialists (2025).
Johnson received a BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination in 2016 and was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list that year.
