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In Fifty Shades Darker, Anastasia (played by Dakota Johnson) gets a promotion and becomes "the boss". Another assistant in the office, who used to be her peer, is now Anastasia's assistant. Anastasia says to her, "I expect you to call me Ana. I don't expect you to fetch me coffee unless you're getting some for yourself. And the rest, we'll just make up as we go along."

This is an exact line from the movie Working Girl, which starred Melanie Griffith, who is Dakota Johnson's mother. Why did the the director or writer choose to include this "in joke" in Fifty Shades Darker? It doesn't fit with the tone of the movie (and the line obviously didn't come from the book!).

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From USA Today, it was a tribute paid by Dakota Johnson to her mom, Melanie Griffith.

"That’s my favorite part," says Johnson, crediting screenwriter Niall Leonard (James' husband) for the idea. "I thought it was the sweetest thing ever. Because when has that ever happened in the history of film? And that’s also such an iconic line from Working Girl. So it’s so special."

(emphasis mine)

In an interview of James Foley, when he was asked about that line from Working Girl, he said,

That was an idea of the original screenwriter, Niall Leonard. He just felt like, when he was writing that scene, it reminded him of that movie and he just went with integrating that dialogue. Dakota was obviously aware of it and embraced it. I feel like it's sort of invisible in the film. It doesn't all of a sudden step out of its world and become Working Girl, but I think it's a nice inside baseball nod to her mom.

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    Thanks AJ. It still seems out of place and clumsy, although Dakota Johnson delivered the line completely differently than her mom. Contrary to what James Foley said, it wasn't "sort of invisible". It pulled me out of the movie for a while.
    – BrettFromLA
    Feb 15, 2017 at 18:11
  • In Working Girl, I think the line is actually delivered twice, once by Sigourney Weaver to Melanie Griffith, and then at the end repeated by Griffith to her new assistant.
    – Leatherwing
    Feb 26, 2017 at 4:09

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