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Director:Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writer:Dan Mazeau
Stars:Millie Bobby BrownRay WinstoneAngela Bassett
Stars:Millie Bobby BrownRay WinstoneAngela Bassett
Damsel Full Movie Review
The 20-year-old, also an executive producer here, shot to fame in 2016 as Eleven, a girl with telekinetic and psychic powers, in the Netflix series Stranger Things. Since then, although she’s appeared in the Godzilla-King Kong “MonsterVerse” franchise, she’s starred in and co-produced two other Netflix projects, Enola Holmes and Enola Holmes 2, both based on the novels about Sherlock Holmes’s scrappy younger sister.
In Damsel, Brown plays Elodie, a spirited princess who faces off against a dragon after an arranged marriage ends with her tossed into a pit as a sacrifice. While the film’s title and setup toy with the trope of the damsel in distress, Brown is so self-assured, there’s never any sense that Elodie is in real peril, which saps the film of significant tension.
Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (TV’s Salvation), Damsel starts off at a somewhat sluggish pace thanks to the trailer spoiling how Elodie winds up in the dragon’s lair. Her parents, Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone, The Gentlemen) and Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett, 9-1-1), are so strapped to help those on their land that they agree to a proposal from a faraway kingdom to marry Elodie to milquetoast Prince Henry (Nick Robinson, Snack Shack) in exchange for a lot of gold.
Lady Bayford senses something amiss when Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright, Devil’s Peak) refers to knowing one’s station, but Lord Bayford won’t discuss it. Soon after Elodie and Henry share a chaste kiss, the queen slices Elodie’s palm in a mountaintop ritual, and Henry pitches his new bride to her presumed doom.
It turns out that the kingdom’s centuries of prosperity have been built on the royal family marrying off a prince to a commoner just to satisfy the dragon’s demands. Perhaps because of the PG-13 rating, the script by Dan Mazeau (Fast X) never explores this classist setup, nor explains what happens when the royal family doesn’t have any sons.
Damsel has some entertaining twists, especially the dragon, voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Expanse) with a timbre that’s sinister, matter-of-fact, and morose. The visual and special effects departments create some striking imagery, such as a swarm of birds burning from the dragon’s breath. Costume designer Amanda Monk (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) also deserves kudos for the elaborate accessories, poufy sleeves, and trims that Elodie uses as survival gear.
While it’s fun to see onetime Princess Bride Wright as a villain, Damsel largely is a showcase for Brown, with several characters commenting on Elodie’s beauty and Fresnadillo filming her in closeups when not cutting to the dragon’s swooping point of view. Brown is certainly likeable, but Elodie is one of those protagonists who changes the world around them more than evolves. We first meet her chopping wood, and she’s so witty and intelligent that it’s no surprise when she hoists a sword or leaps across a chasm like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.
