After starring in one of 2021’s best movies (The Lost Daughter), Dakota Johnson has two more promising features premiering at this year’s virtual Sundance Film Festival. Cha Cha Real Smooth follows a direction-less college graduate working as a bar mitzvah party starter (Cooper Raiff) who befriends a young mother (Johnson) and her autistic daughter, while Am I OK? stars Johnson as a 30-something who comes out, and how that effects her relationship with her best friend (Sonoya Mizuno).
Am I OK? is the directorial debut from comedian Tig Notaro and her wife, Stephanie Allynne (the extremely good One Mississippi), with a screenplay written by The Ellen DeGeneres Show head writer Lauren Pomerantz. How did Johnson end up starring in a movie penned by someone close to her nemesis? Well, it involves Coldplay.
Notaro first met Johnson after Johnson’s boyfriend, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, emailed out of the blue to ask if Notaro could perform stand-up at Johnson’s 30th birthday party. The two hit it off and stayed in touch, with Notaro reaching out as she and Allynne were looking to cast their debut feature as co-directors.
Notaro told the Los Angeles Times that Johnson, who’s also listed as a producer on Am I OK?, is somebody who “knows what she’s doing, and she knows what she wants to do. There’s no confusion there. There’s so many people that take on producer roles that are silently sitting by, and that’s just not the case with her.”
Chris Martin, for introducing Tig to Dakota Johnson, you are almost forgiven for “Fix You.” Almost.
Cha Cha Real Smooth premieres at Sundance on January 23, while Am I OK? debuts on the 24th. You can find more information about both films here.
(Via the Los Angeles Times)
