We’ve been given a first look at Dakota Johnson’s new Netflix film Splitsville, and it promises to be gloriously messy.
Announced in June, the film may be a salve for anyone left underwhelmed by Johnson’s last rom-com, The Materialists. This time, she dives into the challenges of open relationships, offering up a dynamic many of us in 2025 are all too familiar with: that smug couple friend who can’t wait to explain the spiritual benefits of their ethically non-monogamous relationship.
Dakota Johnson and Paul Covino play the glossy friends of sexually timid grade-school teacher Carey, whose adventurous wife requests a divorce and casually admits she’s been cheating on him. Carey turns to his couple friends—wealthy real estate developer Paul (Covino) and his wife Julie (Johnson)—who appear to be thriving after embracing non-monogamy.
Watch Splitsville
In the teaser clip, Johnson is at her cool-girl best, explaining their evolved dynamic:
“We’re just realistic, we love each other and that love is physical and emotional and spiritual, and the emotional and the spiritual are more important, so we’re a little bit more flexible with the physical.”
“You’re very flexible with the physical,” says her husband, Paul.
“I do pilates,” quips Julie.
Carey’s mind is blown by his friends’ incredibly progressive sex lives, and more questions follow.
Splitsville is very timely.
Increasingly, ethical non-monogamy is marketed as a solution to age-old heterosexual woes—cheating, mismatched sex drives and boredom. Some couples even report that non-monogamy revolutionises their sex lives.
In 2025, it feels like most of us know a couple who practice ENM or have dabbled in it ourselves. A UK study found that a third of heterosexual men were open to having more than one spouse or long-term partner, compared to 11% of women. Meanwhile, research in the US and Canada suggests one in five people have already dabbled. Dating app Feeld, which lets couples set up joint accounts to scout for a “perfect third,” doubled its profits in 2023 and hit record downloads in early 2025. Even mainstream apps like Tinder and Hinge now feature ENM as a descriptor.
Related: I Promised Myself I’d Never Cheat, And Then I Did
But non-monogamy has its cynics. For some, non-monogamy is a pre-breakup ritual, a way of testing the waters before deciding that you would actually like to exclusively sleep with people who aren’t your partner. And single women can find themselves having to play detective on dating apps. There’s nothing worse than a DM from the “ethically non monogamous” guy in an open relationship his girlfriend actually didn’t know about. The trailer nods to these power imbalances—when a wide-eyed Carey asks, “Hold on a second, whose idea was this?” Julie’s fidgeting extended silence says it all.
As the trailer unfolds, the complications become obvious: Carey winds up sleeping with Julie, while a (unfashionably) jealous Paul makes a play for Carey’s ex, Ashley. Early reviews are glowing, and Johnson is perfectly cast as the wry, condescending, yet vulnerable cool-girl navigating wifehood and motherhood in the chaos of non-monogamy. It’s a role she was born to play, and from the little we’ve seen, Splitsville is shaping up to be packed with erotic chaos, and we’re ready to devour it.
Watch The Trailer For Splitsville
When Does Splitsville Release In Australia?
Splitsville releases on August 22, 2025, in the US before its global release on September 5, 2025 on Netflix.
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