'Damsel' A Review

Damsel is a western about Samuel(Robert Pattinson) journeying with parson Henry(David Zellner, also written and directed by along with his brother) in toe to meet a proposed to his love Penelope(Mia Wasikowska). The film opens on an excellent scene in the middle of the desert with an old preacher(Robert Forster) bemoaning the west. We then cut to Samuel as he lands on an unnamed beach, wonders into a town, and gets the parson who he's contracted to perform his upcoming nuptials and the two venture out into the wilderness in search of Penelope.

Pattison gives a deliciously fopish electric performance. His devotion to odd indies has been paying off in his performances if not in the movies themselves(see Good Time). His got a wonderful smarmy determined petulance to him that is very complicated but intriguing. Wasikowska is given less to do but is magnetic and embodies this inverted western heroine with necessary gravity. Zellner and his brother Nathan who has an extended cameo are terrible. Flat, confusing, out-classed, and out-of-place. Zellner is so jarringly wrong that it takes Pattison's considerable efforts to make the first third of the film tolerable.

The aesthetics are classic western but the beauty of the butte and the desert are timeless. The main issue is the Zellner's performance and their script. They've attempted to subvert the classic damsel-in-distress troupe but ultimately, after a big reveal, the movie becomes patronizing woke-bro posturing. I give them credit for the attempt but after the turn the film falls apart in a meandering pointless mess. Similar to their previous film Kumiko The Treasure Hunter the story is begun with such promise but quickly devolves into a boring apathetic run on sentence. This not to mention an extended ill advised scene featuring Zellner's Parson being racist towards a Native American for seeming comic effect.

Smug, unexciting, with two excellent but squandered leads.

Don't See It.