Suffering Life in the Bubble

 Warning: Boring beyond help, Damsels in Distress causes high anxiety

by Morgan P Salvo

Writer/director Whit Stillman has made his presence known after a 14 year break with Damsels in Distress which will cause great distress not for just damsels but for anyone viewing this dud. After the highly over-praised flicks Metropolis and Last Days of Disco, this comeback speaks volumes as to why Stillman should stay away for good.

With a recipe of super self consciousness, Damsels is a low budget fiasco and feels as if Jared Hess took time out from Napoleon Dynamite and teamed up with Diablo Cody’s wretched writing smugness from Jennifer’s Body and just turned out a flat pretentious hunk of crap. In the hands of say John Waters or Wes Anderson this self aware flick might’ve played out better, but really no amount of genius could have stopped this misguided crap out of the toilet tank.

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 Stillman tries to steer us through the inane plot surrounding a trio of girls (Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke) who set out to change the male-dominated environment of the Seven Oaks college campus, and to rescue their fellow students from depression, low standards of every kind and extremely poor choices in men. Immediately inducting a new student (Analeigh Tipton) who questions their motives, they are off to save the campus world from the evils of mundane living by running a suicide prevention center. Basically what we get are lowbrow, subversive bland characters, moronic men and laconic, sharp-witted yet ignorant women. Plus with this title you’d figure you’d see at least one chick tied to a railroad track. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Weird timing and expressionless monotonic delivery comprise the style employed here and it weighs the flick down, making the time spent sitting in the theatre all the more painful to endure. The connection between the four girls makes no sense. There is no common thread as each contains elements of individuality impossible to share with others. This is a world where BO is an overblown drama, handsome is a problem and tap dancing is used as suicide prevention and depression therapy.

This sounds somewhat promising but Damsels falters every step of the way in its execution. The script is merely a stage to showcase Stillman’s sardonic wit and use of language which seems only put onscreen to serve his own amusement. Thanks to Stillman’s need to daunt us with deadpan intellectualizing this is a classic case of writing outweighing acting. Putting big smart words in people’s mouths in artsy-fartsy topical debates about nothing does not make art or a good movie but rather smacks of haughty pretentiousness. Even though there are some funny lines amidst the pandering to self consciousness, I don’t get where Stillman is coming from at all.

We can blame the director for the poorly stylized acting. The actors come off horribly because the material thwarts them every time. The cast is dull with the exception of Tipton who shines with believability, but right when her character gets an arc she is dropped like a suicidal potato. Gerwig’s acting is as irritating as her character is to behold.

This flick is intentionally the Anti-Animal House, galvanizing the premise of losers versus social pretentions but that façade quickly dissipates into mundane gibberish. Too much moronic intellectualizing is just plain boring.

Every so often the release valve in my brain would let out a huge SO WHAT?! I have never wanted a movie to be over this much since Babies. I wanted to bolt every five minutes. And just when you think it can’t get worse, in turns into a damned musical. Lars von Triers did a great job with Dancer in the Dark incorporating musical numbers into a dreary super depressing movie. Stillman gives us just a dreary movie with an ambiguous plot and meandering babbling of the incoherent. Ending nonsensically with a dance number called “Sambola” (complete with subtitled directions), Damsels hurts and not in a good way.

When the credits finally appeared, I high-tailed it out of there so fast my head was spinning with a bad taste in my brain. I know this movie shouldn’t stimulate or conjure up such strong emotions because it certainly is not worthy, but I really hated this flick. There’s a campus newspaper in this flick called The Daily Complainer—where do I sign up?

 

Damsels in Distress

Starring Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Analeigh Tipton, Adam Brody,

Directed by Whit Stillman

Rated PG-13

½ star