Damsels In Distress

After a month in theaters, Damsels In Distress appears to be a flop.  It might not gross a million dollars in the US, a hurdle cleared by the lamest of slasher movie sequels these days.  It was here in Norfolk for a single showing a day at the lone art house theater.  I saw it on the opening Saturday and there were maybe ten people in the audience.  It's gone now, after one week.  That has to be quite a disappointment for Whit Stillman, given that it's his first movie in fourteen years.  His previous, The Last Days Of Disco, also lost money.  He had many attempted projects that didn't make it to production in the interim. The public does not appear to be swept away by Stillmania.

The reviews of Damsels are meanwhile entertainingly mixed.  A lot of people really hated this movie, calling it twee, plotless, and insufferable.  Another group really loved it.  Count me among the latter.  (Really, isn't a movie that draws such a split reaction likely to be of more interest than one that draws a uniformly positive but unenthusiastic reaction?  A generic Ebert three star?)

All of Stillman's films concern the young--either college students (Damsels, Metropolitan), or just out (Barcelona, Last Days Of Disco).  Stillman's young people share three primary characteristics: 1. They're trying to figure out who they are. 2. They're trying to figure out the characteristics of a well-lived life. 3. They do these things by trying on roles, in hopes that one will feel right and stick.  Thus they speak in a somewhat stilted, affected manner, but do so with a deep sense of honesty which manages to fit comfortably with the muted dishonesty of the pretense.  That is, they're putting on airs, but with good intent.  I find myself a big fan of this earnestness, which is probably the number one reason I'm such a Stillman fan.  (I even read his entertainingly off-kilter novelization of The Last Days Of Disco, highly recommended.)

Damsels plays in a more absurdist key than the previous three movies.  The beliefs espoused Violet Wister (played by Greta Gerwig) are siller even than those of the utopian socialists and business literature devotees of Metropolitan and Barcelona.  Violet's twin pillars are the emotionally restorative powers of international dance crazes, and the civilizing influence of the proper women on distinctly unpromising frat boys.  Stillman lets us know that though he loves them and frequently agrees with them, he thinks Violet and her elegant posse are more or less nuts.  In one scene, this revelation relies on the audience knowing that Johann rather than Richard Strauss is the waltz king.  Naturally I approve of such a low-key joke, given the name of this blog.  Making the lead characters more obviously emotionally damaged is a bit of a departure from the previous movies.  Maybe this is the result of Stillman's increasing temporal distance from his subjects, given that he's 62 now.

Smartphones and tablets are completely ignored here, which I think is a wise approach.  Those devices have taken over daily life these days.  Movies haven't yet figured out how to handle this organically.  Sometimes a self-consciously hip (and therefore soon to be dated) style is used where characters ostentatiously post things to Facebook.  Other times precious plot minutes are wasted disposing of phones so that misunderstandings and hectic races to the airport can still occur.  Stillman just pretends the networked world away, preferring to shoot for the timelessness of people talking only to the people in their immediate proximity.

If it's still around your area, go help it clear the million dollar mark.  Otherwise, get it on Netflix, unfortunately probably available within a month.

Footnote: the sound is terrible, perhaps a budget casualty.  I thought it might have been just my theater, but it's mentioned in other reviews.  Something to clear up for the Criterion release.