Damsel
This "Damsel" is mostly not in distress.
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Spanish genre filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (“Intacto,” “28 Weeks Later,” “Intruders”) returns to the director’s chair with the fantasy flick “Damsel,” which begins streaming on Netflix Friday, March 8.
“Stranger Things” starlet Millie Bobby Brown stars as Elodie, daughter of Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone), stepdaughter of Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett) and older sister of Floria (Brooke Carter). The Bayford clan and the village they oversee have fallen upon hard times due to a lack of food and extremely cold conditions.
Their fortunes seemingly take a turn for the better when Lord Bayford receives correspondence from Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright) asking for Elodie’s hand in marriage to her son Prince Henry (Nick Robinson, he was Simon in “Love, Simon”). These royals offer Lord Bayford a considerable sum should Elodie and Henry be wed … enough to save their village and then some.
It turns out Isabelle and Henry have duplicitous intentions. Their kingdom has been threatened by a dragon (voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo) for generations due to a self-inflicted curse brought about by their ancestors. They intend to offer Elodie as a sacrifice to the dragon, but the strong-willed young woman has other plans for her future … like actually having one.
“Damsel” is an entertaining fantasy film that starts and concludes strongly, but is sadly fairly flabby in its center. I’m not sure if it’s the script by Dan Mazeau (he previously had a hand in penning “Wrath of the Titans” and “Fast X”) or if Brown simply doesn’t have the screen presence to carry a series of solo scenes, but the middle really lumbers.
There’s a lot of strong craft on display here. I admired the cinematography of Larry Fong (Zack Snyder’s frequent lenser), the production design of Patrick Tatopoulos (a director himself having helmed “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans”) and costume design of Amanda Monk (continuing the medieval streak she started with last year’s “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”). Having seasoned pros such as Winstone, Bassett, Wright and Aghdashloo on hand to sell these surrounds does wonders.
I can see young women being both empowered and entertained by this feminist fantasy flick, which is to say “Damsel” is mostly not in distress.