Damsel review
By Elloise Alexander
Netflix’s Damsel released on international woman’s day and been in the top 10 since
Damsel is a Netflix own film starring Millie Bobby Brown as Elodie, the firstborn daughter of a poor nobleman. She is arranged to marry a prince (played by Nick Robinson) but after the wedding she is betrayed by the cruel queen (played by Robin Wright) and her son for the sake of ‘saving the kingdom’ - she is a sacrifice. Thrown into a dragon's cavernous lair she must use her intelligence and will power to battle for her life.
With the opening scenes of castles, horseback riding and medieval dresses it seems like a charming, fantasy film but manages to lure you into a false sense of security and turns very dark, very quickly. Amongst watching the dragon destroy any knights that dare enter her home. We learn that Elodie is not the first bride to be sent to the dragon's cave and as she travels through its many chambers she is met by the charred remains of her fallen comrades. There is a long generational line of women who have been given to the dragon (voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo), each have fought to escape but never made it out, Elodie is determined to be the first.
The story flows well and although at the beginning seems like it could become a romantic film it ends up not being romantic at all, it's more of an action-packed medieval mystery film. I enjoyed that there wasn’t a prince to save the princess because it meant that the female lead had to be strong, independent and by the end of the film she was fearless. The film was released on International women's day which meant this was the perfect fantasy film to showcase the strength and will power of all women.
Millie Bobby Brown's portrayal of Elodie was reminiscent of Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. Most of the actors’ portrayals were strong bar two, Ray Winstone (who played Lord Bayford Elodie’s father) was weak. He was apathetic and when his character did show emotion they weren’t shown strongly enough. Another was Milo Twomey (who played the evil queen's husband King Roderick) he had no lines at all which was strange because he was a named integral character and having him stand next to the queen for the whole movie doing nothing looked strange and made his character pointless.
When it came to CGI it was good but not amazing almost like all the money went into the dragon and the fire but in the gorier scenes especially when blood was involved the depth was all wrong which made someone lying in a pool of blood look like they were lying on a big red cushion. The special effects makeup was brilliant, the princesses' burns looked real and painful, and the charred corpse was a realistic jump scare.
Damsel very effectively blurred the lines between good and evil, showing that everyone has a backstory and a reason for the things they do.