Damsels in Distress (2012)

Featured Audience Ratings

• William D

  
  After a nearly-15-year hiatus from filmmaking, Whit Stillman ("Metropolitan") is back with "Damsels in Distress," starring Indie It Girl Greta Gerwig. I was quite excited about Stillman's return, but, alas, the film never comes together. It's not… More
  After a nearly-15-year hiatus from filmmaking, Whit Stillman ("Metropolitan") is back with "Damsels in Distress," starring Indie It Girl Greta Gerwig. I was quite excited about Stillman's return, but, alas, the film never comes together. It's not terrible, but much of it does not work. Gerwig plays a student at a small secluded liberal-arts college in the Northeast (inspired by Dartmouth maybe?). But it's not so much a character as a comic caricature blown up to absurd proportions. She and her two pals, who are even cruder caricatures, staff a Suicide Prevention Center and are obsessed with helping fellow students avoid depression. There are many funny lines in this spoof of over-educated lost children, but it's just actors reading funny lines. No one for a second seems like a real person. It's more like a Saturday Night Live sketch than a film. This archly unrealistic approach could work if the satire is scintillating and brilliant. But it's never that good. It's just mildly funny throughout. Also, for satire really to work, it has to resemble real life to a degree. These caricatures are so over the top that they don't resemble anyone. No college students are this screwed up. The film is not so much poking fun at real people as imagining absurd things. "Damsels" wanted to be satirical but often comes off surreal. Not because the humor was intentionally surrealistic, but because the attempts at satire kept misfiring. It hurts to say this, but I think Stillman's filmmaking career is over.

• Mark H

  
  Damsels in Distress is populated with preppy characters that seem to inhabit some alternate universe where catchphrases, pop culture and TV doesn't exist. These girls speak with a theatrical air of authority that makes them a fascinating lot. Their world is definitely… More
  Damsels in Distress is populated with preppy characters that seem to inhabit some alternate universe where catchphrases, pop culture and TV doesn't exist. These girls speak with a theatrical air of authority that makes them a fascinating lot. Their world is definitely unconventional. Some of it rooted in sense, the rest rooted in nonsense. They talk with such dignity and confidence, we feel compelled to listen. For a good part of the movie it works. Their sardonic banter is like spoken word poetry. Much of the conversation is captivating in its affected state. Yet there's a shapeless lack of focus that ultimately does the whole production in. It ends with a random musical number that while pleasant, does nothing to address everything we've watched before it. It feels a little, "since I couldn't write an ending, how's about a song and dance ?" What exactly was the point of all this? I'm still not sure and for the first time, I don't think Stillman knows either.

• Bathsheba M

  
  This was a tongue-in-cheek look at what it means to be sophmoric...a word I haven't heard in a while...and the fumbling for identity that defines young adulthood...and the suicidal impulse that accompany less than successful attempts at finding that identity. Things I… More
  This was a tongue-in-cheek look at what it means to be sophmoric...a word I haven't heard in a while...and the fumbling for identity that defines young adulthood...and the suicidal impulse that accompany less than successful attempts at finding that identity. Things I particularly liked: Violet's (the main character) complete breakdown when her loser boyfriend dumps her--it really captured the complete despair you feel when someone you feel completely superior to dumps you---if even HE can't love me, then WHAT? I LOVE the Indian girl with the British accent who thinks every man is a phony player manipulator turns out to be a complete phony herself. Brilliant. I liked the character (Heather?) trying to figure out the world by dividing women into two camps: those who have hips and those who have no hips. Women with hips, she opines, have morals, whereas women with no hips have none. I thought that completely captured the searching in the dark for meaning that young adulthood is and I find myself, even this morning, wondering how long that character will define the world like that until one day she shakes her head violently and says, "what on earth was THAT all about?" I found the suicide cult hilarious, but that's probably because I am far beyond that. If I were thirty years younger it probably would cut too close to the bone. I liked the dresses that the friends exchanged as easily as their personalities. I liked the male characters search for identity, too: the flit-lit class, the weird religious cult. I had a hard time telling the male characters apart, however, but maybe the casting of a certain type was done on purpopse. Overall, I'm still thinking about it and the questions it raised. Quite enjoyable.

• Glenn G

  
  Whit Stillman's films are an acquired taste at best. Often compared to the late great French filmmaker, Eric Rohmer, his films are high-minded, extremely arch and talky affairs. He's only made 4 films in his career, starting with 1990's METROPOLITAN, and then… More
  Whit Stillman's films are an acquired taste at best. Often compared to the late great French filmmaker, Eric Rohmer, his films are high-minded, extremely arch and talky affairs. He's only made 4 films in his career, starting with 1990's METROPOLITAN, and then continuing with BARCELONA, THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO, and now he brings us DAMSELS IN DISTRESS. I can't say I've ever been a fan of his work, as its snobby airs have always made me want to roll around in a gutter somewhere with syringes sticking out of me like Tina Turner in TOMMY. But his new film, while still operating in his same wheelhouse, won me over, for the most part. Still a formless, talky mess, DAMSELS has many things going for it. First, never underestimate Greta Gerwig. She's fast becoming an indie MVP, with her great turn in GREENBURG and now here playing your typical Stillman character - -articulate, preppy, and slightly aloof. There's no mistaking that she's channelling (intentionally or otherwise) Chloe Sevigny, who starred in Stillman's DISCO. Her Violet, however, is a unique creation and is charming because she's so open to criticism. The leader of a group of vocabulary-rich HEATHERS who welcome a rebellious naysayer into their college -life fold, Violet never quite reacts the way you think she will. When the newbie, played by CRAZY STUPID LOVE scene stealer Analeigh Tipton tells her she's rude, Violet responds that she thinks she's right instead of letting her claws out. It's a measured, unexpected performance, and one that kept me sitting forward throughout. The girls run a Suicide Prevention Center, and it's hear where we see that well-intentioned yet misguided people can STILL do something good for others. It's a lovely conceit that perhaps tap dancing IS the best antidote to suicidal ideation. Repetitiveness definitely sets in, although the cast remained committed and enjoyable throughout. Megalyn Echikunwoke as Rose (yes, the 4 leads are named after flowers - - so precious!), tended to annoy around the 60th time she called a man a "rat player", and Carrie MacLemore as Heather did the one-dimensional dim girl act as best she could. All of the male characters are underwritten and tend to border on the moronic, but this is a comedy of manners, not a comedy of body parts and fluids like most college-era films. Things turn disastrous in the final reel, when we're subjected to a full-on musical sequence and abrupt character co-minglings. And I REALLY could have done without the too-cutesy dance instructions during the end credits. Despite this, I got lost in its charms. Others will definitely disagree. The Writers Guild screening I attended had more walkouts than I had ever seen. I just don't think they're used to hearing characters speak in complete sentences in movies. It's as if we're witnessing a modern day English Drawing Room Comedy without the corsets, tea, carriages, and Maggie Smith.