There’s always a catch, huh? Your relatively low-level royal family lives in a barren cold wasteland with poverty and starvation as far as the eye can see, but there’s a chance for salvation … for everybody. The prince of “hey it doesn’t suck here” land is single and promises a dowry and a home in a decent climate. You’re set for life; you feed your people; and you’ve got a permanent summer home if you want one.
Just one little thing …
The barter-able commodity is Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown). Mom, aka Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett), dislikes the transactional nature of the marriage, but Elodie is good with it. That is, until she sees gets the surprise. Elodie likes to draw labyrinths in her spare time. Funny that. Before long, everybody is whisked away to the CGI kingdom where the prince (Nick Robinson) and Elodie wed high up a rocky cliff. And after the ceremony, the prince sweeps Elodie off her feet, crosses the wooden bridge connecting crags
, stops midway across, and tosses Elodie in the chasm below where if the fall doesn’t kill her, a dragon will (voice of Shohreh Aghadashloo).
We find out early on that Elodie isn’t the first sacrifice by a long shot. One has to wonder how many brides the prince has wed. He seems like he’s new at this, but clearly the practice has gone back some years. The rumors never get to the far parts of the kingdom? Guess not. And at some point, even the dragon has be saying, “Thise mutherf*****s! AmIright?”
But that wouldn’t make much of a film, now, would it?
This is definitely the story of a Damsel i
n distress, but ain’t no prince getting her out of this jam. There are definitely things to dislike about this film – the kingdom looks fake. Heck, it is fake. The first key plot point is telegraphed so poorly I couldn’t believe Elodie went along with it. And in the meantime, we’re treated to horsey chat, yay! And magic coach time! And medieval parents with 21st century values time!
However, the dragon is pretty scary and pretty invincible. There’s a good reason why no princess has ever lasted long down the abyss. At its core, Damsel is a puzzle box movie, where the heroine has to figure out how to get out of her jam with little or no help. And it’s an empowering one; Damsel should speak to every potential Disney princess out there – some of your “princes” are monsters and ain’t nobody gonna save you but you.
So for all this film is a CGI nightmare and a definitely slap to the face of most parents, I kinda liked Damsel. Not gonna win any awards and I kept hoping Eleven would use her psychic nosebleed powers or something, but I was with her almost all the way in solving her dragon-problem puzzle. The film also had a much more satisfying conclusion than I would have guessed. No, it’s not a strong recommendation, but if your Millie Bobby Brown fix has not been satisfied by Enola Holmes, try the dragon on for size.
There once lived a teenaged ice lady
Sold off in transaction most shady
Thrown down a well
With a dragon, oh swell
Lucky for us, she wasn’t afraid-y
Rated PG-13, 110 Minutes
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Writer: Dan Mazeau
Genre: Dragonator (“Dragon ate her?”)
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The active kind of princess
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “Alpha” males
