Damsel Review: Millie Bobby Brown Saves Herself And This Predictable Albeit Enjoyable Fantasy Adventure
The damsel in distress narrative device is a foundational storytelling element for the majority of people. Fairytales tell of princesses in peril and video games hide princesses in castles. These women are treated as prizes to be won, a congratulatory gift to the men who saved these supposedly weak and helpless ladies who would have certainly perished without a man's intervention. Damsel in distress tropes date back to the ancient Greeks, but the misogynistic belief that women are fragile creatures who need men to protect them is, unfortunately, still an intrinsically held value system for a shocking number of people. It's the grandmother of tropes like "fridging" as seen in media and literature, or more insidiously, "missing white woman syndrome" in real-life situations of women in harm's way.
Fortunately, plenty of alternative damsel characters exist to switch up the narrative. Megara in Disney's "Hercules" flipped the typical animated princess role for a generation of young girls by saying, "I'm a Damsel. I'm in distress. I can handle this. Have a nice day!" The following year, Drew Barrymore starred in the subverted Cinderella story "Ever After," playing a princess who doesn't rely on a prince to change her life. Sarah Michelle Gellar's Daphne in the live-action "Scooby-Doo" movie famously kicks a baddie into a check-mate position before asking, "Now who's the damsel in distress?" as a power move, and completely changed the trajectory of her character in future adaptations.
And now, "Stranger Things" star Millie Bobby Brown joins the ranks in "Damsel," the new Netflix fantasy adventure film in which Millie Bobby Brown's Elodie is thrust into the fight for her life when a wealthy royal family attempts to sacrifice her to a fire-breathing dragon. While the story is a bit predictable, as all fairytales are known to be, Brown is such a captivating lead that you can't wait to watch her survive.
Royal in-laws continue to be the worst
Elodie is the eldest daughter of a humble, struggling noble family. Her father, Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone), and stepmother (Angela Basset) are elated to learn that she's been selected to marry the handsome prince Henry (Nick Robinson) at the request of his mother, Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright). Her family is brought to their beautiful kingdom on a secluded island, dazzling Elodie's younger sister Floria (Brooke Carter) with their riches. As Elodie prepares to marry Henry, she learns of the kingdom's dark history, whereupon colonizing the island, a fire-breathing dragon ascended upon the new village, and a king sacrificed his three daughters for a harmonious coexistence.
Now, to honor that sacrifice, the royal family makes a blood pact with young women and offers them up to the dragon with every new generation. The casting of Robin Wright as the evil queen is a bit of brilliantly twisted meta-casting because the kindhearted Princess Buttercup of "The Princess and the Bride" fame is nowhere to be found, and she revels in her delicious villainy.
And yet this is the information one could glean from the trailer ... and also the first 30 minutes of the film.
Pacing is undoubtedly the greatest weakness in "Damsel," a film that takes too long to get started when everyone watching already knows where things are heading. When dealing with fairytale stories, even if subverting them, there's an inherent knowledge baked into the audiences watching at home. This is the princess vs. the dragon story equivalent of people in zombie movies acting confused about what to do for the first half hour while everyone watching screams, "SHOOT THEM IN THE HEAD" at the screen. Fortunately, when Elodie is finally tossed into the dragon's pit, "Damsel" kicks things into gear, and Millie Bobby Brown essentially carries the rest of the film on her own. It would make for a fantastic double feature with the Joey King-starring Hulu film "The Princess," which I suspect was a motivating factor for giving "Damsel" the green light in the first place.
A new Mother of the Dragons
Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo of "28 Weeks Later" fame, "Damsel" not only flips the script on the sacrificial princess archetype but also the approach in doing so. Elodie is incredibly resourceful, but she's also assisted by the remnants of the attempts to survive from women who were sacrificed before her, similar to the help-from-beyond as shown in the horror film "The Black Phone." And the horror elements don't end there.
When the dragon is finally introduced, she's a combination of Dracarys of "Game of Thrones" and Smaug from "The Hobbit" trilogy but with the haunting vocal prowess of Shohreh Aghdashloo ("Renfield," "Ghostbusters: Afterlife"). Her fury is righteous and shockingly violent for a Netflix movie courting a young adult audience, a delightful surprise in a film most would otherwise have clocked beat by beat from the very beginning. Save for a few bits of shoddy CGI of things melting in the dragon's fire breath, she's a formidable foe and feels legitimately dangerous.
But "Damsel" lives and dies by the performance of Elodie, and thankfully, Millie Bobby Brown establishes herself as the new Mother of the Dragons. She expertly finds the balance between a terrified woman thrown into an unthinkable circumstance and a fighter unwilling to give up when things get tough. The film avoids quippy lip service claiming Elodie is "a strong princess who don't need no man," and instead shows her defying the odds with tenacious vigor. It avoids feeling like a #NotLikeMostGirls princess story and instead a fantastical underdog hero tale with thrilling action and a lot of literal firepower. When "Stranger Things" ends in 2025, Millie Bobby Brown should have no problem pivoting to a career as Hollywood's next go-to lead actress, and "Damsel" makes for one hell of a calling card.
/Film Rating: 7 out of 10