Movie review: Damsels in Distress

Spoiler alert.

It takes ten minutes for the clever ones, and fifteen for the rest of us, to realise that Damsels in Distress might be the most meaningless and inane film we’ll ever watch.

Of course inanity is not a problem for people like me who have grown up watching Bollywood films but what really bothers me is the pseudo attempt at satire on college life. For a good part of the film, one isn’t sure if the film’s set in some period era or if something else is the matter. It is only much later that you find out that the film’s not really set in any particular era or place and its all for the sake of surrealism.

The film revolves around the life of three damsels, Violet, Heather and Rose played by Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore and Megalyn Echikunwoke respectively, who are on a mission to save frat boys, suicidal kids, people who smell bad, people who dress wrong (read everyone) at their imaginary college named Seven Oaks. The damsels are joined by another ‘flower’, Lily, played by Analeigh Tipton to complete their botanical arrangement. Problems begin as soon as Lily, an outsider in many ways, becomes a part of the group and starts openly challenging the other damsels.

It is quite obvious that director Whit Stillman, who was on a fourteen-year break from filmmaking (and for good reason), isn’t actually sure what he wants to achieve with this film. He is trying to be clever, that’s for sure, but then he keeps crossing the thin line between clever and stupid time and again. One minute the plot’s about a group of girls who’re trying to save stupid frat boys by dating them, not a good idea! The next minute about using tap dancing and donuts to prevent suicide in college, not a good idea either! Later, it’s about sleeping with each other’s boyfriends and so on. Eventually it turns out that a plot has completely evaded this film. Fair enough. But at least give us pleasing visuals then.

Gerwig, who had managed to win favour with me after Greenberg, has successfully managed to lose all of that post Damsels. She is mechanical and painful to watch but then again, it might have been the script. The film is filled to the T with wordy, whimsical dialogues that get a few laughs out of you at first; afterwards (if you’re still watching, that is), it’s a different story.

You can tell that Stillman is trying very hard to say something profound with the film. What it is, is anybody’s guess. For all intents and purposes, Stillman’s break hasn’t ended still.

People who expect some kind of a narrative in cinema should avoid Damsels in Distress like the plague, or any other such disease. Those who don’t really mind films without stories shouldn’t attempt watching this sober.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, October 28^th, 2012.

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