To love Dakota Johnson is to understand that Dakota Johnson probably hates you for it a little bit.
When she was in 50 Shades of Grey, all anyone could talk about was Johnson’s sheer lack of chemistry with (and perhaps even strong distaste for) handsome costar Jamie Dornan. For a movie that’s supposed to be all about mutual appeal, the press tour lacked even the faintest suggestion of it. If you found their onscreen relationship at all convincing, Johnson would probably politely say, “I love that for you!”
Even bigger than her open embrace of the 50 Shades stiffness came from Johnson’s run-in with Ellen DeGeneres. The actor confronted the terminally amicable talk show host, who had until that point held the mantle of the nicest person on TV, calling Ellen out as a liar. Technically, it was DeGeneres who snubbed Johnson’s birthday party invite, Johnson explained, not a lack of invitation. DeGeneres’s saccharine empire crumbled soon after and Johnson was cheered as the people’s princess. “It will haunt me,” she said to L’Officiel this month of the interaction, telling the publication that journalists as a whole do not understand sarcasm.
Johnson’s unrelenting dryness is her hallmark, like when she famously claimed to love limes. “I love them so much. They’re great, and I love them so much, and I like to present them like this in my house,” she said, pointing to a pyramid of limes during her house tour with Architectural Digest. There was an uncanniness to her delivery; something was endearingly off. Later, on The Tonight Show, she revealed that she was actually allergic to limes, and they were planted by a set designer. “It was hard to just ignore them, so I just lied,” she said, of the citric flourish. Later, she doubled down, saying “I don’t really care about limes.”
As a media personality, Johnson is organic and truly unrehearsed. But when she does or says something fascinating or amusing, she seems to think you’re the weird one for liking it. Being charming is just normal for her. Being charmed by her normality is, to her, a little silly.
Putting her front and center in Madame Web, a Spider-Man-based superhero movie, is an inspired but counterintuitive choice. Superheroes are built on winning an audience over. People root for superheroes. Dakota Johnson doesn’t seem to ever want you rooting for her. And if Dakota Johnson doesn’t really care about limes, why would Johnson care about a tertiary Spider-Man character?
That’s the magic of the gloriously clumsy, terrifically absurd Madame Web, a movie that Johnson herself said was maybe, probably, going to be kind of terrible. And if Dakota Johnson says something is kind of terrible, don’t you kind of want to see what she means? After all, it could just be an unenthusiastic illusion, like the limes.
Don’t take Madame Web too seriously. Don’t take any superhero movie too seriously.
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