Damsels in Distress

By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.375
Director: Whit Stillman
Starring: Analeigh Tipton | Carrie MacLemore | Greta Gerwig | Megalyn Echikunwoke | Ryan Metcalf

Country: united_states

Year: 2012

Running time: 99

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1667307/

Thom says: “Here was a humongous surprise, not because I don’t have an enormous respect for director Whit Stillman (I’d given 5 CATS to all his movies: METROPOLITAN [1990], BARCELONA [1994], & THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO [1998], liking each one more than the previous, but then nothing for 13 years) but his absence from the scene for so long raised questions. But
lo & behold, this was his best film yet. I was certain that it would come to rate my #1 TIFF 2011 FILM, but more on that later.
Another terrific shock was Greta Gerwig, the lead here. After HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS (2007), BAGHEAD (2008), & GREENBERG (2010) I had no use for her but she’s so good here she deserves an Oscar. Here she plays Violet, the queen of a trio of girls at a rundown Eastern university who feel they are far superior to the rest of their classmates. The other two girls are Rose & Heather (Echikunwoke & MacLemore). They decide to add a 4th girl to their clique, a transferring student, Lily (Tipton), who really is almost charming. While they constantly put down almost everyone else on campus they feel they’re doing the right thing by trying to raise the quality of their campus mates lives. They’ve even gone so far as to open a ‘suicide prevention’ center. The boys on campus are absurdly dumb although still quite smitten with the girls. One of the boys is a consummate liar, another, Thor, wasn’t raised with the ability to distinguish colors, and yet another will only have sex anally. The girls, even with vaunted opinions of themselves, are forever having boy troubles. I laughed throughout the entire film as Stillman has hired the perfect cast, written the most uproarious script, with deliriously witty dialogue. The film well could have gone on for hours and I would have been perfectly content. Costumes, make-up, hair styles all exquisite perfection. Whitman said at the Q&A that he had lost his way by moving to Paris for a number of years but that he still could come back 5 cats”

Chris says: “No one could ever mistake a Whit Stillman film for the work of anyone else. His comedies of manners, set in blatantly anachronistic worlds of the affected and the privileged (and those who aspire to be as such) have always carried a potential to lapse into insufferableness; what saves them is his deft touch and acute understanding of what makes his characters tick, flaws and all. Co-ed Violet (Greta Gerwig, eerily but not all that surprisingly channeling a young Chloe Sevigny), the protagonist of the director’s first feature in over a decade is a quintessential Stillman heroine: an articulate idealist fully aware of how exasperating she occasionally is, she’s cultured and a bit arrogant but vulnerable and well-intentioned.

“Together with her three female cohorts, Violet wants to continually improve their (fictional) Seven Oaks college campus, a male-centric bastion of filthy frat houses, young men they dub ‘playboy operator types’ and students depressed enough to fling themselves from top floor of a particular building (thankfully, it’s only two stories high). Her philosophy consists of a particular code of conduct where donuts and tap-dancing provide therapy and a scented bar of soap emits ineffable solace. As she dishes out advice to new girl Lily (Analeigh Tipton), she seems alternately ingenuous and foolish, more so the latter when the advice backfires.

“Though DAMSELS IN DISTRESS retains most of the loopy grace and acidic wit of Stillman’s earlier work, it’s far more uneven. For every inspired fleeting moment (many of which contain dancing!), there’s a less involving sequence such as Violet’s and Lily’s revolving and frankly uninteresting love lives. If you don’t like the earlier films, you probably won’t care for this one either; Stillman devotees, however, need to see it, if only as reassurance that someone still makes pictures like this and has the audacity to give them an ending so rationally ridiculous and yet, kind of glorious for its sheer chutzpah tinged with elegance. 4 cats”

Diane says:  “Oh, Chris and Thom, where were you when I was watching this? I needed to hear somebody laugh. 4 cats from Chris, 5 from Thom…2 from me. I’m a pretty strong Whit Stillman fan (likewise star Greta Gerwig), but my response to DAMSELS was ‘When it is going to take off?’ Maybe it’s been too long since Stillman was at the helm and I’ve lost a sense of what works in his films. I didn’t laugh, I didn’t sense any character development, I didn’t care…. (although the bit about the
college guy who never learned colors perked me up).  2 cats”

Bruce says:  “I’m with Diane of this one. Apart form the occasional bright spot, both the plot and dialogue are lame. The acting, apart from Greta Gerwig, is mediocre. I agree with Chris about Gerwig channeling Chloe Sevigny; I had the same thought during the film.

“To be fair I did laugh a couple of times at Stillman’s cleverness of thought; but most of the time I felt that Stillman has lost his
scriptwriting mojo. In past films his characters were never afraid to embarrass themselves; and their often inane dialogue matched their quirky dispositions and frequently warped intentions. DAMSELS IN DISTRESS contains these trademark Stillman ingredients, however the characters are not fleshed out to the extent necessary to make believable the predicaments in which they mire themselves.

“Hopefully DAMSELS IN DISTRESS was not intended as a comedy of manners variety of satire, rather satire more in the realm of camp. To that aspiration, I would suggest Stillman revert to his former modus operandi. 2.5 cats”