Thinly written and poorly performed, Netflix’s latest attempt at franchise-generation — the fantasy film Damsel — is among the worst big-budget projects on the streamer’s crowded roster. And this is saying something. We are, after all, talking about the platform on which you’ll be prompted to watch Red Notice over Roma, The Adam Project over Athena. Ostensibly a feminist fable, the film reeks of the male gaze, which can be plainly observed in the heroine’s appearance; her outfit gets increasingly skimpier as the film progresses.
Damsel is directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, who hasn’t helmed a feature film in over a decade, and written by Dan Mazeau, who’s had exactly one movie produced in the last 10 years. But this isn’t the kind of film that compels you to find out who’s responsible for it, because its committee-driven mentality becomes apparent even before the opening titles have rolled. For all intents and purposes, however, Damsel is an attempt to launch a new franchise for Millie Bobby Brown, whose Enola Holmes movies seem like masterpieces by comparison.
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Perhaps on purpose, Damsel is determined to not be as tongue-in-cheek as those films. That being said, it can hardly be taken seriously either. It begins as most of these movies do — a teenage girl is shipped off by her uncaring father to get married to a nobleman she’s never met. She quickly discovers that she’s on her own, and goes on an epic journey of emancipation. The twist, here, is that she doesn’t suffer the sort of humiliation that you’d normally expect. She isn’t locked in her room for days on end, nor is she starved or made to wear rags. The film’s giant metaphor for the perils of arranged marriage, believe it or not, comes in the form of an actual dragon.
Brown plays Elodie, whom we learn virtually nothing about before she finds herself at the altar, married to a prince named Henry. Immediately after the wedding ceremony is complete, Henry escorts her to a nearby mountain under the pretence of completing some kind of follow-up ritual. There, Elodie is greeted by what can only be described as the gang of satanists from Rosemary’s Baby, who’ve gathered together to essentially sacrifice her body to a living, (fire) breathing dragon that lives in the depths of the mountain. The rest of the movie is essentially a survival thriller, as Elodie outsmarts and outmanoeuvres the giant monster hungry for her blood.
The fact that Henry’s mother is played by a particularly icy Robin Wright doesn’t seem like a red flag to Elodie, who is completely swept away by pomp and splendour of being a princess. Talk about progressive. But this really is a problem. Damsel wants us to believe that Elodie is a capable, resourceful young woman, but it can’t be bothered to show us why and how. If anything, the movie paints her as exceptionally foolish for not questioning her father’s decision to get her married off. He doesn’t even hide his motivations; Elodie’s dad makes it perfectly clear that this is a tactical move to earn a higher status in society.
And for good measure, Wright’s villainous queen spells this compromise out for everybody’s convenience when she declares, “Look how high you’ve climbed. But one mustn’t forget one’s station.” Damsel is filled with lifeless dialogue like this, which makes it seem very confused about the kind of tone it wants to take, because on other occasions, characters use phrases like ‘guilted’ and ‘girl talk’. It’s jarring to hear because unlike, say, Netflix’s Persuasion, contemporary lingo isn’t baked into Damsel’s DNA. But poor writing is.
In the mountain, Elodie appears to magically develop the skills necessary to evade a mythical creature. She basically Jason Bournes her way out of trouble — she crafts ropes, creates booby traps, constructs homemade explosives… None of this would’ve been difficult to buy had the movie had given us even the slightest glimpse of what Elodie is capable of before she found herself fighting for her life. But because Damsel rushes through the first act like it’s being chased by a dragon, all you can do is wonder how the movie could expect you to root for an action heroine this thinly written.
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More than the poor CGI and the utter unoriginality, it’s painful to see veteran actors embarrass themselves with material like this. Angela Bassett, who plays Elodie’s stepmother, is literally coming off an Oscar nomination. Ray Winstone, who plays her dad, gets exactly one scene where he can ‘act’. Surprisingly, it’s the dragon — voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo — who gets a bigger arc than even Elodie. Perhaps this movie should’ve been presented from the beast’s perspective.
Damsel
Director – Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Cast – Millie Bobby Brown, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright, Ray Winstone, Nick Robinson, Shohreh Aghdashloo
Rating – 1/5
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