Damsel Movie Review

Damsel (2024)

Watch Damsel on Netflix
Written by: Dan Mazeau
Directed by: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Starring: Millie Bobby Brown, Ray Winstone, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright, Nick Robinson, Brooke Carter
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
A dutiful damsel agrees to marry a handsome prince, only to find the royal family has recruited her as a sacrifice to repay an ancient debt.

Verdict
I like the idea, but it scripts everything so well that it removes the appearance of any challenge. Everything is so easy and happens quickly. A longer first act could have better established the character, but she has these visions that exist apparently just for exposition. There's no logic to it, and lapses like that hurt the movie. There's almost never any tension. This is so focused on action that the story crumbles under any scrutiny.
Skip it.

Review
This opens with a big fight against a dragon before we cut to centuries later. What happened to the dragon?

Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) is promised in marriage to a prince. Her father will get money to help their village survive. Elodie is excited, interested in meeting the prince and falling in love. We quickly get the sense that the queen is hiding something. The marriage ceremony is weird and then confirms this 'marriage' was  ruse. Elodie is a sacrifice. A sacrifice for what?

Millie Bobby Brown, Nick Robinson play Elodie, Prince Henry

Elodie faces seemingly insurmountable odds. She's resourceful and tough, established in the few scenes when she's in her village. She's going to need that to survive. I like the implication that many women have come before her, but why was there a sacrifice just a day before? The movie tells us that every generation must provide a sacrifice. Is that true or not? Wouldn't news get around that every woman that marries a prince dies of disappears as soon as they're married? There's even a sacrifice they day after the royal family threw Elodie into a hole. How can this royal family disappear so many people?

Elodie uses previous captors failures to succeed. I do wonder how someone survived long enough to draw such a detailed map. The movie really wants us to know Elodie is kind to all creatures, which comes back later. At the onset this seems like an obstacle that will take days as shes trapped in this cave with a dragon. She manages to escape in a day where everyone else before her died. That just seems too easy. Her wounds are quite easily healed, which I can accept. The time table is just too short. I was ready to see how she was going to eat and sustain her energy to find an escape.

To build the story about the women before her and the dragon, Elodie has these exposition visions. There's no way she could know these things. They exist to help the story as there wasn't a good way to insert them. It's a shortcut.

Millie Bobby Brown plays Elodie

Elodie escapes in record time yet never passes anyone else on the road to this mountain despite the multiple trips everyone is making. I though her escape in a day seemed a bit too quick, but towards the end of the movie Elodie speed runs the cave using all the tricks she learned the first time around. This movie happens too quickly. I like the idea, but everything is too easy. Elodie finds everything she needs with ease. It never feels like a struggle or survival.

When Elodie needs to progress in the story, she's provided exactly what she needs. When the movie wants the viewer to have backstory, we just get a scene with no context or setup, making it look like Elodie can ascertain through force of will what's going on. Even the deal the dragon has with the family seems more convoluted than it needs to be and perfect for a ruse. This movie is action first and story much farther down the list.