Damsels in Distress (2012)

Thanks for the memories!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Damsels In DistressSurprisingly it is flat out hilarious and offers the audience their life of the time throughout the course of time and keeps them engaged throughout the course of it by only walking on something that it is so narrow yet is explored in detail with such an elegance and confidence that it is almost impossible not to be effected by it. The screenplay is gripping, thought-provoking and of ironic nature, all along its well edited and of almost 100 minutes. The camera work is utterly beautiful and is shot nicely too but unfortunately is short on other technical aspects especially on sound department. Whit Stillman; the writer-director, has done a tremendous work on executing the anticipated vision on screen by keeping it light and breezy. Greta Gerwig is amazing on her portrayal and is supported well by her cast and the key to that is the chemistry among them which is more convincing than any other thing. Having said that, the feature chews off too much of the subplots of the characters only to make a definite point which the audience can see far before it even hits, which makes it redundant. Damsels In Distress is anything but in distress, as it flaunts itself on a much larger scale; something to think about.

This is my favourite Greta Gerwig movie. The humour is wonderfully dark and dry and the story is a unique mix of college frat movie meets musical fantasy meets Clueless meets Heathers. It's hard to describe this film as it doesn't seem to fit any particular genre. But you will love Greta and her friends and you will delight in their quests.

Violet (Greta Gerwig) and her two followers Heather (Carrie MacLemore) and Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) intends to help Lily (Analeigh Tipton) who recently transfered. They run the Suicide Prevention Center at the Seven Oaks College to questionable effectiveness. They have an obsession with odor and fighting for proper etiquette. Priss (Caitlin FitzGerald) joins the group insisting that she's not suicidal.I just think that the characters are so unreal. Everything is so weirdly pretentious and mannered. They are annoying people who all talk in that annoying manner. It may work if only a few talk that way. This feels like writer/director Whit Stillman is trying too hard. The Frat guys are too stupid. Are they color blind? At least, that would explain that insane conversation. The problem is that they don't look high. It sounds more like high talk. The girls are too high-minded (not the drug kind). The conversation is too annoying to be funny. It almost pains me to hear some of the dialog. I love Greta Gerwig as an actress. Analeigh Tipton is OK but she lacks the power. There are some good actresses but I don't like this movie.

It is difficult to get one's bearings in a a film like this. "Damsels in Distress" seems to take place in a slightly alternate dimension, but one without any sign of warp drive or aliens. Instead, it's an idyllic world where coeds modeled on Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn serve donuts and teach tap dancing at the suicide prevention center. And it's an off-kilter world where emotions are so blunted that everyone seems pleasantly drugged. It's hard to tell whether Whit Stilman is making fun or engaging in wish-fulfillment. At first, the film seems to laugh at its heroines' arrogant and presumably deluded efforts to improve others' lives through nice soap and tap dancing. But when the damsels' methods prove basically successful; it's evident that the film's tone is less mocking and more admiring. "Damsels in Distress" takes place on an idyllic Ivy-league-ish college campus, here a profoundly safe universe. Modern threats are tamed into harmless foolishness. College boys may be smelly morons, but olfactory offense is the worst of their sins. Sexy slightly- older Europeans might seduce you with wine and Truffaut films, even talk you into slightly uncomfortable sexual acts, but STDs or pregnancy fears are patently unreal. Suicide is purported to be a problem, but most depressed students willingly take cheer-up tap lessons (and those who don't make cautious leaps from 2nd stories). Everything, including suicide, is humorous and picturesque. Every problem has a tidy, pleasant solution, and often tidiness is the literal solution.But the most alien element of "Damsels in Distress" is the characterization. Characters have very few qualities and almost no back stories. Stranger still, they barely emote, speaking in aphorisms and muting emotion into a kind of pleasant monotone. And when they do emote, their subjects are head-scratchingly strange ( Queen Bee Violet's most emotional moment arrives over her discovery of great-smelling motel soap). In the campus musicals and melodramas of old, the movie-universes "Damsels" most closely resembles, coeds fought and fell in love with full-hearted emotionality and Technicolor optimism. Characters in "Damsels", maintain a ritualistic reserve, perhaps a subtle acknowledgment that the niceness of their world is fragile and easily undone. Perhaps it's Stilman's attempt to sneak up on the kind of Technicolor happiness that is in rare supply today.