Photo Credit: Netflix

By Sara Yarnell

Features Editor

A trifling ode to woke Hollywood and International Women’s Day, Netflix’s Damsel (2024) is the newest in an oversaturated genre of less-than-empowering female heroes attempting to break out of the traditional fairytale mold. But, for a story with the aspirational goal of stressing feminine strength and power, Damsel fails spectacularly. 

Sacrificed by her ugly newlywed husband to face a desolate fate at the stomach of a CGI dragon, Millie Bobby Brown stars as Princess Elodie in this tale of terribly unrealistic survival and bland girl power. 

Beware: spoilers ahead. 

After getting yeeted off a cliff, Elodie somehow miraculously survives the several story fall into the dragon’s lair. When the dragon eventually finds her, it becomes a scramble for survival as she runs through the cave system. With a surprising amount of help from paranormal regenerating glow worms, her irritating father, and a whole lot of plot armor, Elodie manages to initially escape the dragon.

But, she braves the caves once again to heroically rescue her sister. However, instead of defeating the dragon, she befriends it with said glow worms in a moment of terribly stereotypical ‘femininity.’ Elodie and the dragon then proceed to murder her cowardly husband and commit a vengeful mass arson spree on the kingdom before riding out into the sunset like something out of gory How to Train Your Dragon. 

From start to finish the movie felt uninspiring. Almost everything (dialogue, plot, action) was shoved in the audience’s face like some kind of State Farm ad. The excessive feminist message was repetitive and overwhelmed the film, making it hard to take away much else. The art of subtlety was horrifically lost. 

One of the main goals of the film was to break the idea of the stereotypical fairytale princess (hence ‘damsel’). But for Elodie, the transition from helpless princess to powerful warrior woman was harsh and a bit jarring. There was little character development aside from a couple of hallucinations within the caves. 

Perhaps one of the few successes of the movie fell to costume designer Amanda Monk, who was tasked with dressing the characters with historical and metaphorical value attached. And in this, she triumphed, especially with Brown’s wardrobe. The featured wedding dress worn by Elodie for the majority of the film was undoubtedly extravagant: a white and gold gown with heavy Spanish and Italian influences. As the movie progressed, the dress became metaphorical and a symbol of her present circumstances.

The critics agree as well– Damsel received a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes and 46% on Metacritic. Although this film may have seemed like a let down on Netflix, perhaps it has an admirably boring future as a blockbuster on Southwest Airlines.