Is Dakota Johnson Actually Good at Acting? ‘Materialists’ Hinges On This Age-Old Question

Materialists, writer-director Celine Song’s follow-up to her wonderful Past Lives, scored one of distributor A24’s biggest-ever openings over the weekend, outgrossing the U.S. total for the Oscar-nominated Past Lives in just three days. Much of that is probably attributable to the three stars at the movie’s center: Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal may not be huge box office draws on their own, but they’ve collectively appeared in enough hit movies and TV shows to have the kind of name recognition that romantic movies (whether comedy or drama; Materialists has been described as both) thrive on.

But do people actually watch movies for Dakota Johnson? And is she actually a good actor? This question seems to pop up just about every time Johnson appears in a movie; just last year, she was keeping fans guessing by following up Madame Web with Daddio, forever complicating her image by making bad movies a lot of people will see alternating with good ones that far fewer will. But even among the movie nerds who are more aware of Johnson’s body of work, a consensus has failed to develop over whether her flat-affect aloofness is a feature or a bug. At times, Materialists seems designed to perpetuate this debate, possibly into infinity.

As mentioned, some have described Materialists as a romantic comedy; Johnson’s presence should be the first sign that zany misunderstandings and running through the airport will not transpire. Can you picture Johnson running anywhere, much less through an airport? That’s one reason nobody bought Madame Web. In the new movie, Johnson plays Lucy, who has made a nice living for herself in ultra-competitive New York City through a job at a matchmaking firm. She meets with clients looking for love and commitment, and figures out who checks the most/best “boxes” for each other, communicating in person with all the practiced politeness of a former bestie’s check-in email. Right when she meets the ultra-wealthy Harry (Pedro Pascal), a prospective client wants to pursue her instead, she also has a chance reunion with John (Chris Evans), an ex whose constant money problems she could not abide.

Johnson does not do a lot of standard rom-com stuff in this movie. She doesn’t do pratfalls, doesn’t hyperfixate on anything in a fit of Type A zaniness, and she doesn’t get a makeover where she goes from gorgeous to gorgeous with a different hairstyle. Lucy has a guardedness that’s reminiscent of Johnson’s overall persona, the main difference being that Lucy seems to take her work seriously. (Even when she starts questioning her life choices, it’s because of a serious issue with the matchmaking business.) In her other big-studio pictures, especially the Fifty Shades movies, Johnson seems to be struggling to keep a straight face. She’s not on the verge of giggles, either, but rather barely containing an eyeroll or a grimace.

So does Dakota Johnson with a straight face just mean that she flattens her affect into de facto blankness? Lucy isn’t as overtly wounded as the characters she played in Cha Cha Real Smooth or Daddio, which only furthers the question of whether people are just projecting characterization onto her performance, or if she’s actually operating in an alluring subtlety. Materialists incorporates that question into its story: Lucy claims to want to marry rich, something she’s decided after witnessing years’ worth of matches and mismatches as well as bearing witness to her own financial struggles, and the movie is cleverly coy about how dedicated she is to this directive. We don’t see her discuss much besides work and relationship status, topics that heavily overlap for Lucy, and so it can be legitimately difficult to discern how shallow she’s supposed to be, or is pretending to be.

Some viewers feel like they have a firm answer on Johnson: She’s doing next to nothing and reaping the benefit of her vibes, a classic nepo-baby act for the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. (It’s as if she’s internalized the fact that Griffith’s ditzy image sometimes threatened to overshadow some genuinely excellent performances, and resolved not to let herself get pigeonholed by affecting any particular trademarks.) But isn’t the ability to command attention while doing very little the very essence of star quality?

The debate over Johnson is not dissimilar to the progression of Kristen Stewart, whose reputation gradually went from promising young performer to mannered poster child for the awkwardness of the Twilight acting style to low-wattage anti-star to limited-range actor with interesting taste to genuinely beloved indie icon. This took the better part of two decades, and there are still plenty of normies who have never seen Personal Shopper, Certain Women, or Spencer – or wouldn’t know what to make of them if they did. With Johnson, it feels like the whole thing has accelerated, from promise to underwhelming blockbuster series to reclamation – maybe too fast to really get a handle on what she’s doing.

More than anything, Johnson makes a case for a kind of star agnosticism. While there are obviously figures whose connection with the broader audience is undeniable and/or electric, most actors fall into the category of “can be used well.” It ultimately doesn’t much matter how much Johnson is consciously giving her character in Materialists. Her being in the movie isn’t just an accident, like Celine Song tried to call in Reese Witherspoon or Kate Hudson and got the number wrong. If anything, Johnson is particularly well-suited to this kind of zenlike acceptance.  (You could even argue that her privileged Hollywood status makes it come more naturally.) Materialists is very upfront about matchmaking: Sometimes a person can check a lot of boxes and still not match. And sometimes they can be missing something, and still seem perfect.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn podcasting at www.sportsalcohol.com. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others.