Millie Bobby Brown needs to have a deal with… life. The poor girl basically is living inside Netflix, as the star of Stranger Things, which will probably air its final season when she’s 30, and the Enolah Holmes series, Brown is of course doing Damsel for Netflix. The problem with that, is that Netflix has a movie vomit approach to its platform, and it is so hard to parse which films are worth your time just by assuming it’s the new Friday release. Netflix has so many mediocre movies with movie stars they could stock a defunct Blockbuster with just their own material. Damsel, and this is important, is not one of those films.Damsel is actually good. This is one of the rare Netflix films I’m willing to vouch for. It’s not amazing or groundbreaking, but I had fun, it moved at a solid pace, and featured some solid actors. Aside from Brown, the movie stars Ray Winstone, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright, and Nick Robinson, and features the voice of Shoreh Agadashloo (still an Oscar nominee). The audio description here is Descriptive Video Works, written by Sarah Mennell. It’s a new name for me, so I hope I didn’t butcher it. I did not catch the narrator’s name.
Damsel takes place in a medieval type world where a King (Winstone) decides his eldest daughter (Brown) will marry to forge an alliance. That’s how we meet the Queeen (Wright) of another kingdom, and her son (Robinson). Everything seems on track to be normal, and Brown’s damsel even has a stepmother (Bassett) that isn’t doing the evil stepmother trope. Then, once the deal has been made, our Damsel finds out that all that glitters is not gold, and she’s actually part of a ritual blood sacrifice. Cool.
For those who are bemoaning strong female leads, Brown’s princess isn’t endowed with any extraordinary combat skills, she simply uses her wits to help her get out of and survive the situation. I won’t spoil what that is, but it’s the coolest thing about the film, and one of the reasons the audio description track works so well. The scenes with Brown going through all this harrowing survival stuff, and trying not to die, or be mauled by… the spoiler.
I had a lot of fun with Damsel. The cast did a good job, the film subverted my expectations, it is paced well, and has fun dialog exchanges along with some nice action. It is a solid vehicle for Brown, and the audio description does an excellent job of bringing us into this world that is a little different from ours and how things used to be. Agadashloo’s voice work is also truly a standout. I recognized her immediately.
So, maybe give this one a chance. It likely will be one of those few Netflix films I’ll actually remember a few years down the line.
Final Grade: B+
