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Join UsStar Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Ray Winstone, Angela Bassett, Brooke Carter, Nick Robinson, Robin Wright
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
What’s Good: Millie Bobby Brown has a striking screen presence
What’s Bad: The story
Loo Break: You can if you fail to survive the boredom
Watch or Not?: Rewatch the trailer, and that’s it
Language: English
Available On: Netflix
Runtime: 1 hour 49 minutes
User Rating:
In Damsel, Princess Elodie is married off to Prince Henry. From the outside, it looks like a fairy tale story. But Henry’s family sacrifices Elodie’s life to save their bloodlines. They throw her into a cave where a fire-spitting dragon resides, hungry for royal blood. It’s a story of this Damsel who is in distress but has no one to save her.
Damsel Movie Review: Script Analysis
In the Netflix film Damsel, Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone) fixes his daughter Elodie’s (Millie Bobby Brown) marriage with Prince Henry (Nick Robinson) to save their kingdom. Elodie agrees to take this bold and risky step without questioning her father’s decision. All of this happens in the first 30 minutes, and the rest of the film is about Elodie fighting the dragon to save herself.
From a fantasy drama, the Millie Bobby Brown starrer turns into a survival thriller and not a good one. There’s nothing really going on in the story. It’s just an extended version of everything we see in the trailer. We know that Elodie isn’t someone whom any Prince will save. So, there’s a predictability factor in the narrative that will conclude in Elodie’s favour. It’s a basic story with nothing extraordinary going on.
Writer Dan Mazeau aimed to tell us the story of a girl who can fight for herself. But his fantasy drama is full of stereotypes. From how the characters speak to how the girls obey everything the elders tell them, there’s hardly any voice for women; except for Queen Isabelle. We hardly know anything about Elodie except for the fact that she was used as a sacrificial lamb and now has no option but to become a “warrior”. You keep waiting for one moment that will amaze you, and you keep waiting, and eventually, the movie ends.
Damsel Movie Review: Star Performance
Millie Bobby Brown performs Princess Elodie with utmost honesty. Sadly, her character lacks depth, just like the story. Hence, there aren’t any moments where she gets to show her true potential. However, yet again, the Stranger Things star has proven that she can easily fit into a setting of any era after Enola Holmes. Robin Wright plays the cliched evil Queen who loves controlling her son. Even a talent like Angela Bassett is wasted in the story.
The rest of the cast play their parts satisfactorily, but don’t offer much to the feeble plot.
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Damsel Movie Review: Direction, Music
Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo ticks all the boxes when it comes to showing what a typical fantasy period drama would look like. As I mentioned above, the set pieces, the character appearances, and the kingdoms built are like what we see in such fairy tale dramas. But the Netflix film cries for a good story. Neither the reason for the evil Prince family’s absurd ritual nor the way Elodie fights for survival interests you. To make it worse, they have added a talking dragon to their story.
Even if I ignore the bad VFX done on the fire-spitting dragon, I can’t pretend that the creature often sounded like a creep. There wasn’t a single moment where the dragon looked like a fatal threat to Elodie. You can’t help but wonder, how is the creature terrible at finding a young girl in his own house? Towards the end, Damsel only relies on unoriginal twists – with Elodie chopping off her lengthy hair, wearing fewer clothes, and finally deciding she won’t listen to others what to do!
David Fleming’s music, unfortunately, does nothing to save this lacklustre story.
Damsel Movie Review: The Last Word
Overall, Millie Bobby Brown is trapped in the house of the dragon in Netflix’s shallow fantasy drama, Damsel. Her character might need no saving, but the movie definitely needed one. If the dragon was thirsty for royal blood, the movie was hungry for a solid story.
One star!
Damsel Trailer
Damsel releases on 08th March, 2024.
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