Millie Bobby Brown is not your average damsel in distress as seen in the 2024 Netflix original film “Damsel.”
The “Stranger Things” and “Enola Holmes” actress plays Elodie, a princess from a poor kingdom who gets married off to a wealthy prince to save her struggling lands. On her wedding day immediately after the ceremony her new husband sacrifices her in a ritual and throws her off a cliff into the lair of a dragon. The dragon is out for the blood of the royal family because years ago the king of this land killed the dragon’s offspring which ended the dragon’s bloodline. In an act of revenge and stricken with grief the dragon proclaims that the king’s punishment for killing its daughters is to sacrifice three of the royal daughters for three generations.
This film had potential to be great and many viewers thought it would be judging by the thrilling trailer that Netflix put out before the release of the film. It featured a star-studded cast of Angela Bassett who played Lady Bayford, Robin Wright who played Queen Isabelle, and Shohreh Aghdashloo who voiced the dragon, but their talents were wasted on a subpar film.
The film lasted over an hour and though it focused mostly on the survival of the main character the suspense building in some parts lasted so long that it was difficult to stay interested.
It was however refreshing to see Brown play the role of such a powerful woman and even though the story itself was not particularly good she delivered an amazing performance especially considering that for most of the film she acted alone in front of a green screen.
“Damsel” was not a terrible film but contained many aspects that could have just been done better. For instance, the first 30 minutes of the film were spent introducing the characters, but it gave no real backstory to what was in store and frankly was boring. The rest of the film, up until the final ten minutes, was repetitive and finally the last ten minutes were completely rushed and made no sense. This is the type of film that you watch once for the novelty of it and then never watch again.