In two separate anti-romantic comedies this summer, Dakota Johnson is presented as both a subject and object of desire. In Celine Song’s Materialists (a love triangle) and Michael Angelo Corvino’s Splitsville (a love rectangle, or even, maybe, a dodecahedron), Johnson makes herself the films’ most valuable asset — a presence as unknowable as love itself.
Materialists and Splitsville are thematically aligned though chronologically at odds. The former is about all the horrible stuff that can happen in dating before marriage, and the latter is about all the horrible stuff that can happen in dating during and/or after marriage. In Materialists, Johnson’s Lucy is a chilly matchmaker trying to decide if she will marry for status and worth (like all her clients seem to do) or for love (like her parents did, to disastrous ends). She sees marriage as somewhat antiquated and a gateway to another phase of life — one that is more secure, luxurious, and fruitful. Like the protagonists of classic marriage plots — novels and films alike — Lucy cannot see beyond walking down the aisle. She doesn’t have to; that’s not her job. In Splitsville, Johnson’s Julie is on the other side of the proverbial romantic aisle. Plus or minus ten years into her marriage with Paul (Corvino), the two have drifted into a staid open relationship that grants them the freedom to do anything but spend time with each other. Julie is bored, saddled with their son, Russ (Simon Webster), while Paul stays out late anywhere but his own home. In her boredom — or maybe loose sense of vengefulness — Julie turns her attention to Paul’s best friend, Carey (Kyle Marvin), who has recently split from his wife. Traditional romantic comedies often ask us to fall in love with, or at least be charmed by, Lucy or Julie, but neither film is keen on that kind of coddling. At the center of both, Johnson is a cypher — never letting the viewer see all her cards. As the subject of Materialists, Lucy’s coolness evolves from a businesslike need to maintain control over a situation. We learn that she was once an actor, a profession that seems far more open and vulnerable than Lucy allows herself to be as a matchmaker. She approaches love with a detached sense of practicality: The work she does is nothing more than crunching numbers. She might as well be an actuary. In Splitsville, Julie is a wife scorned and ignored. She wants validation from anyone — especially someone who might make her husband see what he’s missing.
Splitsville’s approach to these questions of love and relationships is much more heightened. The men at the film’s center — Paul and Carey — are hysterical and self-involved. They are morons, put plainly. They panic, bluster, and lie — to each other, their friends, themselves. The women, however, seek a different kind of love, having been failed by the bounds of conventional marriage, open or otherwise. Carey’s ex, Ashley (Adria Arjona), uses her separation from her spouse to explore every possible avenue of dating, cosplaying as girlfriend of the week to whomever she’s hoping to wind up with. This is played for laughs — her wearing westernwear for a cowboy — but Ashley’s identity crisis is not at odds with her newfound separation. In fact, her new boyfriends are content to hang with Carey while she’s off living her life. Julie tries to regain control of the life she derailed by kissing Carey in the first place. That Julie doesn’t know what she wants lets Johnson’s natural aloofness weigh her options without giving away the game.
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Johnson’s career was built on the backs of romances, comedic or otherwise. In the 50 Shades films, her blankness gave Anastasia Steele a naïveté that could be played up or down depending on the game of the scene. This openness granted her a modicum of power in her, uh, complicated relationship with future husband Christian Grey. There was a kind of self-aware camp to the 50 Shades movies — as if you, the viewer, knew Johnson was playing a little dumb. In her more traditional rom-coms, like How to Be Single and Am I OK? and even Persuasion, she contorts herself to appear awkward or powerless. Her romantic indecision is framed as a kind of weakness: only once she makes up her mind will she achieve whatever actualization a marriage or boyfriend can provide. In Materialists, and even more so Splitsville, her uncertainty is more powerful. These films play with Johnson’s ability to play high status: the steely and unpredictable force that must be won over. In Materialists and Splitsville, Johnson’s characters seek a kind of stability and safety in a modern world that promises neither — for single women, girlfriends, or wives. But neither movie goes so far as to say that stability is tethered to men; in fact, in both films her characters come to realize there’s far more out there.
While Materialists sticks to the bounds of its love triangle, Splitsville suggests the more, the merrier. What begins as a nervy riff on Bob & Carol & Ted, & Alice becomes a kind of sweet, albeit absurd, comedy about a found family consisting of people who can’t stop having sex with each other in various combinations. There is a stability in community, Splitsville argues, even if that community is people you currently are or aren’t hooking up with. It’s a roller-coaster ride, as manifested literally in one scene in Splitsville that leaves Johnson the least composed we’ve seen her onscreen, as the coaster bobs and dips, tipping her from side to side. She’s free from the restraints of what marriage can offer her — now the fun can begin.
