Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) is promised to Prince Henry (Nick Robinson) of Aurea, a marriage arranged by her father, Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone), and his mother, Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright) which will bring riches to her home kingdom, lifting the people out of poverty and give them a chance to survive the winter.  After the wedding, she and Henry journey to a nearby mountain to pay homage to the ancestors, but the ritual takes a dangerous turn. Elodie mingles her blood with the prince and is then offered as a sacrifice to a dragon that lives deep in the mountain; a tragic tradition that has been carried out by the royal family for centuries. 

Damsel, a recontextualized fairy tale, was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo working from a Dan Mazeau script.  Released by Netflix, the 108-minute film the film has promise, but really proves why Netflix Originals are seen as the new direct-to-video at least in terms of uninspired storytelling. Both Fresnadillo and Mazeau are broaching new genre territory for themselves with Damsel, and the desire to bring an outsider’s point of view to the tiered tropes is evident, but while the outline and the storyboarding may have shown promise, the film ends up relying on everything it is trying to subvert. Thankfully, though, Fresnadillo leads his craft departments in the creation of a rich world that can still inspire some wonder and magic. Seeing the realization of this storybook world made the cancellation announcement by Disney of their upcoming The Sword in the Stone (1963) live-action adaptation of which Fresandillo was attached all the more bitter, especially since news broke the same weekend as Damsel‘s debut.

Narratively, it makes sense that Robinson and Brown’s characters have such terrible chemistry, but there is no real sense of mystery here as the film is desperately trying to sew.  The intricacies of what will unfold may not be immediately clear, but audiences never have a chance to trust Henry so his fulfillment of familiar duty at the turn into the second act comes off more as just the empty actions of a vaguely defined villain instead of an actual betrayal of Elodie which would establish some more depth to these characters. Even if Henry was always going to sacrifice his new bride, Mazeau takes the simple and easy route with the script, denying Robinson the chance to build a character, to build empathy or trust with the audience so the shock of his sacrificing her ends up falling quite flat. Further, it is a questionable casting choice of the two actors with an eight-year age difference, and while history would support much larger age gaps in arranged marriages, Brown’s Elodie still very much looks like a wide-eyed child bride next to the slightly stubbled Henry giving him an ever so slight sense of maturity that makes this arranged marriage feel exceptionally gross.  If this was the point, Mazeau does not explore it. Honestly, the film is probably better off for not getting too into the weeds here, but Robinson, with such little screen time, could and should have been replaced by or styled as someone younger.

As for Brown, she is saddled with an impossible-to-play character who can do no wrong so some slack should be given here regarding her performance, but it is a tough ask of the audience all the same. In medieval tales of heroes, it is common that the plot armor which they wear into battle never as much as chinks against even the fiercest of foes, but that does not mean it is a good storytelling tactic to employ.  Had the story of Damsel been more robust, maybe this could have been overlooked, but the film rides almost entirely on Brown’s shoulders as it becomes a single-hander when she gets dumped into the lair of the dragon. There is nowhere for the weakness on the page to hide which means Brown, with a similarly thin character, has her loose and weak performance on total display for much of the film’s runtime.   

Netflix is often criticized – and often unfairly so – for their steps towards representation, especially in regards to inclusion of race and gender in their films that break from catering to the white male template.  Damsel presents a great opportunity to tell a four-quadrant story, but stumbles and delivers something closer to a no-quadrant story.  There is an oft-cited adage of dubious support that boys do not care for female heroes and vice versa.  What it really comes down to is audiences – no matter their identity – want to be respected by storytellers and in this case, filmmakers.  Damsel, makes it very clear from the opening voice-over that we are just going to see a lazy, gender-swapped story set in a land of kings and queens, castles and dragons.  Some of the impossible feats that we witness are Elodie being thrown into a chasm, landing on some mud-covered stone with nary a scratch, outrunning the massive firey breath of the dragon who resides there, and even surviving a brush up against the flame.  It is a bridge too far, be it a prince or a princess, and the film is not setting the world up to be one where this elastic ability is supported.  She survives because she is Millie Bobby Brown and this is her starring vehicle as she joins the ranks of almost every similar hero whose powers and endurance can rise to any occasion simply because they have top billing.  There is no respect here for the audience, and as the film drags on, there is nothing new or fun to discover in these caverns as the hunted becomes the hunter. Young audiences will become bored during the long second act where not much happens and those who pay for the Netflix subscription will find more excitement in peeking at their work email on their phone to preview what nonscene awaits them.

While the film offers little on the page, there is a lot to take in visually. Amanda Monk’s costumes are vibrant and colorful, and Elodie’s wedding dress – though functionally questionable – gets her both in and out of trouble across a variety of troubling scenarios in the film.  Production designer Patrick Tatopoulos helps curate a mythic setting for the plot to unfold and capitalizes on any chance outside of the dragon’s lair to inject some brightness and color into the setting.  Larry Fong’s cinematography is functional, and he has a good sense of how to block and capture the action, but the film has that digital sheen to it that even what is supposed to be old appears new, though is his defense, this is just the unfortunate style of the times. It is a shame that more time is not spent in the palace or its grounds, too, as the camera and lighting work best in the exteriors where we can forgive some of that magic shine that the sunlight pours down onto those locations, but the film is not particularly interested in the political connivings at play which are latent in the plot though it obtusely reintroduces these ideas into the finale, painting Elodie as an economic mastermind who ends the film having apparently turned her humble kingdom into a thriving trade empire. 

It is the action sequences where Damsel excels most.  While the dragon, voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo who seems to be trying to mimic the timbre of Wright’s voice – which would have made for a very interesting correlation had she been cast in the dual role – does not always blend seamlessly into the backgrounds, she is always a threat. With a backstory of slaughtered babies, central to the plot but then quickly glossed over, the nameless dragon hates the royal family for what their ancestors did to her young centuries ago.  She senses the mingled blood of the wives, stalking and killing far more than the three which the legend states are due while the royal family can preserve the true bloodline and still keep the dragon satisfied.  The lore of the film is quite interesting and the dragon is a tragic character with a far more developed arc than any of our heroes, but with so much potential on the page, Aghdashloo is pushed aside so that Brown can scream and yell and girl boss her way through the cave. 

Damsel, in the hands of a more accomplished screenwriter or noted by someone outside of the Netflix board room could have taken over the conversation aided by its immediate accessibility on the streamer.  Instead, it becomes a cheap imitation of what it wants to be.  It promises to flip the conventions on its head, and all it does is gender-swap the protagonist without really delving into the societal inequity that Elodie finds herself facing off against after her ordeal with the dragon.  Without any central metaphor or correlation to real structures of inequality, the film is doing so little but clearly thinks that it is doing so much more, and everyone can see it.  It struggles to keep audiences engaged because it does not respect them enough to tell a real story with fleshed-out, defined characters inhabiting a world that can stand up to even the slightest bit of narrative scrutiny.  It heavily relies on everything that it is trying to dismantle and because of that, it becomes an entirely forgettable and downright frustrating experience because not only does it burn its audience who may have been drawn in on the premise of a badass princess, but it sets the stage for its own demise before shooting even began with such a weakly defined script that leads both cast and director astray.