'Damsel' Review: A Passable Medievil Adventure From Netflix
If you read a synopsis, saw a trailer, or even simply heard about ‘Damsel’, and think that may be solid grounds upon which to check it out, you are absolutely right. Damsel is that sort of movie, where the concept, setting, and star are the plain allure. There is nothing particularly singular about this movie, in any technical or storytelling aspect, but it is what it says it is: a medieval action/drama about a girl and a dragon. You’ve got swords, shields, fealty and fire; all of the Middle Age necessities. If that interests you, there’s pretty much no way you can go wrong with this one, even if it doesn’t knock your chain mail off.
The film follows Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) as she’s swept off the streets of her struggling little village and into a grand kingdom, where her father has arranged for her to marry the prince. What seems at first like a fresh start, despite obvious restrictions, quickly unveils itself as the opposite through dark tradition and a big, nasty secret.
Damsel feels like an engine for Millie Bobby Brown to excel on the streaming platform, though that isn’t as bad as it sounds. She’s just always on screen, encapsulating essentially the only character arc in the film and never going a beat without a line of dialogue that’s meant to be plastered on posters and inspirational edits everywhere. Netflix keeps finding ways to cast her as a new lead, but she further proves here that she’s earned that stake. Her performance gets better as the stakes rise and the film goes on, she’s a major stand-out here.
Elsewhere, and less fortunately, Shohreh Agdashloo provides the voice for the film’s dragon, and that doesn’t go down as smoothly. Agdashloo does a technically sound job, delivering lines with a patient malice that fits the dragon stereotype of being mystical and ancient quite well. But when you see it speak, her voice bellowing from this monster, it just doesn’t look right. Agdashloo enjoyed great success voice acting in Netflix’s Arcane series as of late, but the translation to Damsel is a misstep. It doesn’t kill the film, but it is a battle wound, to be sure.
Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, well known for the well-liked zombie sequel 28 Weeks Later, does both his most and least compelling work in the caverns and caves of this film, where we spend most of our time following Elodie as she tries to escape the clutches of the dragon that lives there. When Elodie is braving it alone, slinking in and out of shadows and holding her breath to avoid being detected, there’s a constant colorful overlay that changes as she journeys; from blue in a glow in the dark cave to orange as fire rains down through the icy ceiling, these bits are some of the best the film has to offer.
On the flip side, despite the dragon itself looking magnificent, everything else to do with the beast looks odd, to say the least. As people are swooped up, flown around, tossed, smacked, and stabbed, the visual effects can never seem to get a good grasp on things. The screen blurs when people fly across it, proving detrimental to the tension, and clearly computer-generated dust rises from the ground as they land, driving the claw further into the heart of the attempted grittiness.
What’s worse is that, in the close-quartered scenes spent alone with Elodie, that grittiness works tenfold. There are some gnarly displays of makeup here, most often when she gets burned or scraped. What consistently follows are screams of agony as she makes efforts to tend to her wounds. The score bows out, the camera hardly cuts, and the film really shines. If that tone had been maintained throughout we could be looking at something more here. That stings, even if the final product is passable.
Passability is probably Damsel’s greatest misstep. There is a sense of safety in much of this film, specifically the camera work and broader stylistic sensibilities, that hold it back from ever being something special. Sequences that could conceptually define the film end up blowing over the experience like an inconsequential breeze, mainly because the camera rarely deviates from a set path of coverage. Save for a stretch of interesting shots scattered throughout and concentrated in the very last scene, we’re looking at a shot/reverse shot machine that does no favors for immersion or intrigue.
In the same step as the lackluster special effects, there also lies a gray, digital slab over the face of most of this film. It’s an issue that has haunted modern blockbuster filmmaking as of late, especially in straight-to-streaming projects such as this one. Often worsened by flat lighting and lackluster coloring, though Damsel does well in avoiding those for the most part, the issue is massively prevalent in the industry today. How lush green landscapes surrounding elegant castles can be made to look bland is beyond anyone, but Damsel manages it.
If the film didn’t have a fire-breathing dragon at the center of the action, all of these issues would be a lot harder to handle. But, of course, it does, and that means that Damsel is quite alright, all things considered. It’s a good notch better than a lot of Netflix originals, containing a decent helping of narrative allure and above average production design; it’s better than Bobby Brown’s Enola Holmes entries on the same service, so there’s a noticeable line of improvement to be drawn as she continues climbing the Netflix ladder, too.
In spite of a slightly overblown runtime (coming in at 110 minutes), this is a pretty safe recommendation for a popcorn and soda movie night at home. It’ll entertain without asking for much in return; a semi-serious subject with a lighthearted overlay that suits it well. Don’t go in expecting to be blown away, and Damsel should do just fine. Just make sure you’ve got your armor, and possibly a few glow worms for safe measure, too.