Movie: Damsel
Production Company: Roth/Kirschenbaum Films
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Producers: Joe Roth, Jeff Kirschenbaum, Chris Castaldi
Scriptwriter: Dan Mazeau
Main Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Ray Winstone, Nick Robinson, Shohreh Aghdashloo
Release Date: March 8th 2024
Running Time: 100 minutes
Certificate: 12
Introduction
What a perfect choice of film for Netflix to release yesterday… Unfortunately, Damsel isn’t the revolutionary and progressive film Netflix thought it was. Why? Because it falls into the same category as Ghostbusters (2016): all it proves is that women are just as good at making mediocre film flops as good as men can. So maybe it was the perfect film to release on International Women’s Day… Anyway, if you don’t like Millie Bobby Brown this definitely isn’t the film for you as she spends it playing hide and seek with a dragon in a cave. Also, how the hell did this film manage to get Hans Zimmer (yes really) to produce its painfully average score? Mind Blowing really, anyway here is my review of the film.
Synopsis
Damsel follows Elodie (Brown), the titular damsel, as she shockingly realises her dodgy arranged marriage is a sham when she is chucked off into a cave by her hopefully soon to be ex husband, Henry (Robinson). This is all part of a weird tradition that the royal family have with the occupant of the cave: the dragon (Aghdashloo) to sacrifice three daughters to preserve peace in the kingdom. Anyway, with nothing but her wits and a random dagger to help her survive, Elodie has to try and defeat a hungry dragon to escape the cave in order to reveal the truth about the very weird wedding tradition.
Analysis
Millie Bobby Brown’s Performance in Damsel
What to say about this dreadfully mediocre film? There really isn’t that much to talk about so a good place to start would be Millie Bobby Brown’s performance as Elodie. Also, sidenote if I had a pound for every time Millie Bobby Brown played a character beginning with E who dated a man whose name begins with H I’d have £2 which isn’t that much but strange it’s happened more than once. Anyway, her performance is about what you’d expect anyone to pull out of this frankly mediocre script. Bless her for going for it, otherwise this film would be even more instantly forgettable as she is forced to put up with a paper thin romance and only one truly hilarious moment.
And yes, that’s when she ends up the dragon’s cave which shouldn’t be funny but catches the audience so off guard you can’t help but laugh. While she attempts to mine emotion out of the script there’s so little substance to the script any attempt will be met by at best apathy. Oh, well there’s still Enola Holmes 3 or Stranger Things for her to try and redeem this painfully average performance.
Tone in Damsel
On the topic of that unintentionally hilarious scene of Henry tossing Elodie into the cave like a bin bag, the tonal shift of the film will undoubtedly catch the audience off guard. This is because the film goes from a generic and boring self aware rom-com to a terrible rip off of Ready or Not there’s a dragon rather than murderous inlaws. Arguably such a violent tonal shift kills the films chances of keeping what little audience they may have had as by the time people have adjusted they’ve most likely lost interest.
Especially since you could just watch Ready Or Not instead of this pale and boring imitation. Then, once Elodie escapes the cave it’s back to the generic fantasy tone and sorry but I’m going to have whiplash if this script pivots one more sodding time. Though what did I expect when the scriptwriter also wrote Fast X…..
Summary
To summarise Damsel, this is a dreadfully average and mediocre film which Netflix farted out in order to try and gain some cheap pops on International Women’s Day. The only highlights are when it chooses to rip off Ready or Not and when Elodie ends up the cave. Just remember that this film will always fulfill the Ghostbusters 2016 role of female equality as mentioned in the introduction.
Overall Rating: 4/10 – Disappointing
Target Audience: 12+
Content Warning: Moderate Violence and Gore, Moderate Frightening and Intense Scenes
Recommendation: No
