Princes, princesses, arranged marriages, kingdoms … and, of course, dragons. The Netflix film Damsel has all of the above, but in a slightly scrambled order: Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown) marries a handsome prince, but he then sacrifices her to a dragon.
One really must do such terrible things for one’s subjects.
It’s hard to get much of a sense of this film from the trailer, which is mostly Brown trying to escape some rather fake-looking rocky landscapes, intercut with some pre-dragon royal shenanigans. The cast is incredible, though we barely get a look at them; along with Brown, the film stars Angela Bassett, Robin Wright, Ray Winstone, Nick Robinson, Brooke Carter, and Shohreh Aghdashloo. Bassett is Elodie’s presumably not-so-wicked stepmother; Wright is her new, royal mother-in-law, who gives such a nice little speech about her new daughter-in-law joining a long line of women who helped build the kingdom.
Sadly, the very basic fantasy trope-flips on display here don’t seem to live up to the potential of a cast like this. Hopefully, this is just a half-baked trailer—after all, the film doesn’t even have a release date yet.
Damsel comes from director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) and writer Dan Mazeau (Wrath of the Titans, Fast X). It’ll be on Netflix next year.
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