The “crazy, crazy film” Dakota Johnson accurately called a “total mindfuck”
Dakota Johnson didn’t truly get to show her acting chops until after she had become a star.
It’s often that any aspiring actor has to spend a few years towards the beginning of their career, making not-so-great films in order to prove their worth, securing the potential to do better projects in the future. Thankfully, these early roles tend to be forgotten, but for Dakota Johnson, they became blockbusters, and although she had a few smaller roles in everything from The Social Network to 21 Jump Street, she got her breakthrough with the phenomenon that was the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise.
While its source material had been mercilessly criticised for its perceived lack of quality, Fifty Shades of Grey translated to massive box office success. It’s the rare case in which a hit might have actually hurt an actor’s career, as it gave the impression that Johnson would be just as stiff and unemotional as she was in the 2015 erotic drama, but she clearly had more to offer as a performer, which is why Luca Guadagnino scooped her up for his ambitious remake of Suspiria.
Dario Argento’s original 1977 film is one of the wildest films of the ‘70s, and certainly among the most influential giallos of all-time, so remaking such a beloved title seemed like a recipe for disaster, especially after the terrible remakes of other horror classics like Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, The Fog, and The Amityville Horror.
However, Guadagnino chose to completely invert Argento’s style, whose version was 90 minutes long and featured striking colours, whereas Guadagnino’s was over 150 minutes and had a much more muted, visual greyness to it, and in order to help the new version stick out as a definitively feminist remake, he enlisted an all-female cast that included Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Chloë Grace Moretz, Mia Goth, Jessica Harper, and Ingrid Caven, among others.
Johnson said that working on the film was an unusual yet rewarding experience, noting, “I have an interesting relationship with it because we had such an intense time filming it. We all felt so wild and passionate about it. Now to see it in its final form is really a feeling of accomplishment, but it is crazy! It’s a crazy, crazy film, totally unsettling, and it’s amazing how uncomfortable it makes you feel. If I hadn’t seen a lot of horror films, I’d think it’s a total mindfuck.”
As with the original, Suspiria drew divisive reviews, but it was impossible to criticise the craft or performances. Johnson, in particular, was singled out for praise, as she had been able to convincingly perform all the physical scenes in which she did dangerous ballet performances. Given the grotesque and unsightly body horror that is in abundance, it was important for Suspiria to have strong human characters.
Johnson also had a well-received performance in Guadagnino’s 2015 erotic drama A Bigger Splash, which also co-starred Swinton and Ralph Fiennes. Given the backlash that Johnson has earned for doing broader studio films, such as the superhero flop Madame Web and the uneven rom-com Materialists, it might be best for her career if she continues to work with arthouse auteurs like Guadagnino and makes independent cinema her priority as a star.
