Is it by accident or design that Dakota Johnson has become the star for zeitgeisty sex and romance films? Johnson’s breakthrough role was as Anastasia Steele in the enormously popular Fifty Shades of Grey (2015). Adapted from the book series by E.L. James, it spawned a franchise that, for better or worse, has come to define BDSM in the mainstream cultural imagination.
In Celine Song’s recent film, The Materialists (2025), Johnson plays Lucy, a high-end matchmaker who enables wealthy individuals to bypass the random scrolling and swiping of dating apps and experience a hand-picked romantic match. Although in my review for The Conversation I suggest that the film is muddled in its message, The Materialists makes an effort to address the cynical business of marriage in our modern age – and the dangerous outcomes that can befall women when blind dating goes wrong.
Enter Splitsville, a new comedy film written by and starring Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino, with Covino also directing. This latest film is about open marriages.
