Since her acclaimed performance on “Stranger Things,” audiences have been watching Millie Bobby Brown’s acting career with great interest. The star recently added another film to her resumé with the release of the Netflix original, “Damsel,” based on the novel of the same name. Promotional material for the movie assured viewers that this was no fairytale and featured the actress doing her own death-defying stunts while covered head to toe in grime. Brown’s character, Elodie, has been torn away from her home by a marriage that is promised to save her kingdom from poverty, and this new strange land comes with a strange new beast that Elodie must escape from.
The film was released on Friday, March 8 and has overtaken Netflix’s charts as the most-watched movie of the week. It received 35.3 million views in just three days, but despite these numbers, “Damsel” has received mixed reviews from critics and audience members alike. Some thought the film was overly simplistic and cliche, while others viewed it as a breath of fresh air from other fairytale subversions. Millbrook senior Raina Freedman commented, “It was pretty good, it had a lot of twists and the ending was actually 10/10,” and others have thought the same. Just a few days after the film debuted, edits started popping up on TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms posted by the new, yet passionate fanbase.
Most viewers who had negative things to say about the movie cited its simplicity and slowness as major drawbacks to the plot. There’s about a half-hour of build-up and exposition before the action of the movie actually begins and while it’s meant to build tension and mystery, some critics thought that it only built boredom. Critic Natasha Alvar from Cultured Vultures wrote, “Despite Millie Bobby Brown’s committed performance as Elodie, Damsel doesn’t have quite enough spark to keep audiences entertained.” Even negative criticisms of the film do yield that there are some effective and moving aspects of the film, but argue that they are outweighed by overarching problems.
Whether or not “Damsel” is worth your time as a movie-watcher seems to be up for debate. With a runtime of only one hour and forty minutes, it may be worth the risk of wasting that small amount of time in exchange for an engaging story. At the very least, “Damsel” is an interesting watch to occupy your time and allow you to turn your brain off.
