Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress marks the writer/director’s first film in 13 years following 1998’s The Last Days of Disco. My anticipation here was high after seeing Stillman’s Disco and Metropolitan for the first time back in 2009. In that sense, Damsels is easily recognizable as a Stillman feature with intelligent dialogue and characters with a gift for gab, but it takes on something of a fantastical edge I never quite became comfortable with. The story could have metaphorically been told in cardboard castles with the cast dressed in Renaissance garb and it would have played almost exactly the same, it’s that kind of film.
It’s not about princes and princesses, but the soft tones and wispy and whimsical line-delivery comes courtesy of modern day damsels Violet (Greta Gerwig), Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and Heather (Carrie MacLemore), a group of girls with a mission to help severely depressed and potentially suicidal students down off the ledge. Their unorthodox methods and frequently arrogant approach make it a little hard to get in their corner, but fortunately newcomer Lily (Analiegh Tipton), a transfer student, joins their group on the first day of the new school year and is bold enough to speak up and point out hypocrisies.
With Gerwig in the lead role as Violet she’s suited for Stillman’s dialogue like a leather glove. Strong, opinionated and a perfect head to this snake, Gerwig fits the character well. Rose is a weird sort of social conspiracist who believes most boys are either “playboys or operator types” and Heather is a legitimate dimwit and to prove the point we’re witness to her theory on why the name Xavier must be spelled with a “Z” because Zorro is spelled with a “Z.” It’s deep stuff, but I think you get the point.
Stillman has given each of the girls specific and highly individualized character traits, each offering something different to the group dynamic allowing them to co-exist as one. Lily serves as the counter-balance and the audience’s way into trying to understand the group. Through Lily’s curiosity, care and exploration of this new world we’re able to look in without getting too frustrated. However, a problem exists in that these girls aren’t particularly interesting. I’m all for witty conversation, and this has all the flair of a Stillman script, but the conversations lack an overall level of intrigue.
The “distress” as the credits refer to them, are the men of the feature as played by Adam Brody, Hugo Baker, Ryan Metcalf and Billy Magnussen, each offering a counterpart to each of the young ladies in ways I don’t really want to explore here for fear of detailing too much of the story. However, I felt there was a bit of cynicism in the exploration of the men and an overall negative opinion of today’s youth. Not that I disagree with Stillman, but if the film ever held any level of reality it loses a lot of it when it introduces a pair of frat boys, neither of which have the capacity to describe an object’s color, and by this I mean they can’t look at a red chair and say it’s red, they have no word for it, not even green, blue or purple.
Damsels does have an impressive visual style with Stillman and cinematographer Doug Emmett bathing the film in soft tones, giving it a dreamlike atmosphere, frequently flashing to close-ups and more intimate photography. This visual approach matches the largely even keel dialogue which rarely over extends itself emotionally. Additionally, Stillman sets the mood early replacing Sony Classics’ traditionally blue logo background with a pink pastel, softening the mood from the outset.
For the most part the film works and offers plenty of laughs, and while I have my qualms I have a feeling it’s a film I may need to see again. I enjoy Stillman’s ability to turn a phrase and he’s found a perfect batch of actors to fit his narrative style, with Gerwig in particular standing out once again. But while this film goes down easy it doesn’t go down as expected, perhaps I was unwilling to adjust to a film I expected to be a tinge more serious and for that reason alone I am anxious to give it a second chance.
