Mark Reviews Movies: DAMSEL

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 28, 2018

There are no heroes in Damsel, although, at different points in the movie, it seems as if a several characters could be one. One could make the argument that there are three protagonists whose stories fit the mold of the traditional Western hero. There's a man, venturing across the frontier to reach and save his true love. There's a preacher, convinced of matters of right and wrong but learning that, in this place and in this time, the line between the two isn't as clear as mere appearances would suggest. There's a frontier woman, able to make her own way in this world and searching for some sort of meaning in tragedy and her independence.

The mixing and matching of archetypes between and within these characters serve as central idea of writers/directors David and Nathan Zellner's take on the Western. It's an ambitious undertaking, juggling these three characters as their broad strokes clash with the reality of their natures. The fraternal filmmakers have plotted a clever bit of revisionism here, although the movie itself works much better as a concept than in practice.

The tone is set with a prologue featuring two men in the desert, waiting for a stagecoach on a sheltered bench. There's an old preacher (Robert Forster) and a man named Henry (David Zellner). Henry is heading west, hoping to find prosperity in the still-expanding frontier of 1870 after the death of his wife in childbirth. The preacher is heading back east, having tried the life of the West and discovering that it's all a lie. The preacher strips down to his underwear and starts walking east through the wasteland, leaving his ministerial garb and a beaten-up Bible to Henry. A chunk of the pages of the holy book have been torn out for, according to the preacher, kindling and "matters of hygiene."

At the start, then, the Zellners establish that there is nothing traditional about this vision of the Old West. Tradition itself is stripped bare and sent packing, never to be seen again.

That's when we meet a man who appears to be a traditional hero. He's named Samuel (Robert Pattinson), and he has arrived via boat to the shores of this world, bringing with him only his fancy clothes, a couple of firearms, a guitar, and a miniature horse. The horse is to be a wedding gift for his fiancée Penelope (Mia Wasikowska), whom we first see dancing with Samuel during the opening credits. Samuel has hired Henry, now presenting himself as a preacher, to help him reach his betrothed and then marry the two lovers.

A few things seem, well, off about Samuel. He's a bit goofy, with a plastered-on smile and an almost foppish way about him. At first, we suspect he's simply a broad parody of the chivalrous hero—a man who's willing to brave the dangers and the unknown of the frontier, if only so that he can see his beloved and offer her a song. The song he has written, by the way, isn't much of one. There's nothing particularly chivalrous about his use of Penelope's photo, either.

Pattinson ably and amiably hams it up in the role, looking like a handsome hero with a tender heart but behaving like a fool, who struggles with the basic act of retrieving the rifle and the guitar slung on his back. The actor doesn't play the part as a parody, though. There's a sincerity to Samuel's aloofness that takes on a much different quality when he finally reaches Penelope.

There's a key sequence of events at the story's halfway point that must be approached rather diplomatically here. The build-up to those moments comes when Samuel tells Henry that Penelope has been abducted by a villain. We're kept in this mindset all the way through Samuel and Henry's siege on a cabin in the woods. In the aftermath, we quickly realize that Samuel is far from the bumbling hero he first appears to be.

The move completely shatters our view of all of these characters. It's a total capsizing of expectations and established archetypes, as the apparent hero's motives are revealed to be quite sinister, the broken-down sidekick turns into an accomplice to the terrible consequences of those motives, and the woman who seems to be a damsel in some distress becomes a victim of chivalry gone haywire.

When it comes doing something with this new scenario, though, the Zellners seem stymied by the potential. There are some wilder and more violent gags (One involves some dynamite, an injured man, and a fall that's the worst of luck). Penelope almost becomes the protagonist here, as she's confronted by other men akin to Samuel, from a fur trapper named Rufus (Nathan Zellner), who has biblical expectations of what her relationship with him should be, to Henry himself, who thinks himself Penelope's protector, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Ultimately, these additional encounters and confrontations are making the same point, and as strong as Wasikowska's performance may be, the movie never quite embraces Penelope's newfound role as the hero of her own story. Damsel, then, offers a central twist that subverts the mythos of the Old West, but it doesn't take that subversion far enough to say anything more substantial.

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