macbook air/monterey 12.0.1 denies permission to open downloads file in finder

Try booting to Safe Mode. That boot up takes minutes and clears caches and other things that may resolve your problem.

How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

A lot of times just boot to Safe Mode followed by normal boot resolves problems.

There are two versions of Safe Mode.

One for Intel based computers and a second version for Apple Silicon M1 computers.

Each are different methods.

Choose the one corresponding to the CPU Version on this computer.

How to use safe mode on your Mac

User profile MacBook Air 13″, macOS 12.0

If correct suggest updating to latest version released Dec 13, 2021 version 12.1.

This may be related to the computer issue.