Title: Damsel (12)
Year: 2024
Running Time: 110 minutes
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Cast: Millie Bobby Brown (Elodie), Ray Winstone (Lord Bayford), Nick Robinson (Prince Henry)
Notes: None
Rating: 6
Thoughts: A Princess in a bleak country is invited to marry a faraway Prince so the family head to the other Kingdom for the union to be progressed.
We start with a brief scene of a King leading his men to defeat by a dragon. His retinue is killed, and he surrenders. We then fast forward to a miserable land where two princesses are gathering wood and talking about selling their family's possessions.
Out of the blue, they are invited to another Kingdom for the eldest girl to be married. It is a rich and opulent land, and despite the arranged nature of the marriage the Princess and Prince appear to get on.
There's a good sense of there being something not quite right, as the Queen is frosty to the Princess' stepmother, and it's all just a bit too perfect. Once the wedding is done it then starts to get a touch darker.
The whole thing is a ruse, clued by the first scene. The King from the start had made a pact with the dragon for his life, meaning the Kingdom needs a steady stream of victims. Elodie is the next. But of course, she survives the attempt to throw her into a cavern.
There's the inevitable chasing by the dragon where Elodie is just a bit meek considering how bleak her home was. But she escapes and after some lengthy toing and froing gets the dragon on her side.
The dragon is visually (let's not think about the voice) as good as the rich Kingdom and there are lots of great looks in the scenes. The plot though is just a touch obvious once the premise is revealed. And there is too much that is just for show.
There is a scene with a lot of birds catching fire - why are they even there? And why does the Kingdom even bother with Princesses? They are conning the dragon with merged blood so paying dowries is just a waste of cash. They could just use their own peasants for victims. And having the dragon act as narrator to explain it all is just lame.
This would be stronger if played more darkly but I guess they wanted to keep a broad appeal. But there are too many parts that aren't sensible to leave this feeling little more than a generic fantasy tale. Why doesn't the dragon just go and do what it wants to much earlier? There's no twist, it's just a story turned on its head.