Before I start let me say that I had the worst
seat three rows from the front while watching “Damsels In Distress”. I seriously do not know how people can watch
and enjoy a film so close to the screen, it is torture.
Anyway, “Damsels
In Distress” is Whit Stillman’s new film and his first in thirteen years since
his previous “The Last Days Of Disco”.
This is actually my first film from Stillman that I have seen and I have
to say that it was delightful and quirky, it was delightfully quirky.
The film
is about four friends Violet, Heather, Rose and Lily, who live on campus at a
co-ed college. Violet, who is the
unofficial leader of the group, believes that it is up to them to make the less
popular and moronic feel better about themselves. If she goes out dating looking for a man, she
looks for the qualities mentioned above.
The girls also run a “suicide prevention center” on campus that offers
coffee and donuts to the (clinically) depressed, not to mention, putting on tap
dancing shows to cheer them up. However
when Violet herself becomes a victim of depression she starts to realize that
her “head in the clouds” approach to the mental illness may need a reality
check.
This is
such a quirky and fun film with a wonderful central performance from Greta
Gerwig as Violet. She just has a
presence on camera that leads you to immediately fall in love with her (and not
just with this film too). It is actually
a hard role to pull off due to the film’s hyper stylization. She has the tough job of selling to us that
Violet could actually believe that a bar of scented soap could really cure
depression. I also really liked Analeigh
Tipton’s performance as Lily, the newcomer to the group, who compared to the
rest of the group actually seems more grounded and appears to live in the real
world and thus often questions a lot of the girl’s and especially Violet’s
eccentric ideas.
While I
admit that Stillman’s script is at times brilliant with sharp and funny
dialogue strewn throughout, I did have a few problems with the film and some of
its quirks. The chapter titles seemed
completely pointless to me and at times they even gave away aspects of the story
before we had even viewed them. Also the
broad and simple portrayal of the majority of the male characters seemed very
silly causing them to come across as caricatures and never once feeling real. While a college graduate who cannot distinguish
between colours may be a funny idea, it isn’t believable and comes across as a
little dumb. The only male character
that seems to come out looking alright is Adam Brody’s Fred Packenstacker. In fact, Brody gives a really great
performance in this and after seeing him in a few things recently I am starting
to realize that he is actually quite an impressive actor.
While
the film has a lovely atmosphere and is easy to enjoy, I also believe that it
is a bit messy. It attacks subjects in a
kind of scattershot kind of way, with issues never really building or
organically grown, they just sort of happen without any rhyme or reason, and
then they leave just as quickly as they appeared. Still I suppose any film that can combine
depression, suicide, anal penetration, the medical abilities of soap and the
healing nature of tap dancing and turn it into some sort of cohesive whole and
make it funny and entertaining, must have something going for it. Despite its flaws, “Damsels In Distress” is
very much worth seeing and it is actually a lot more intelligent than you would
think upon first glance.
3.5 Stars.
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