Damsel
Directed by: David & Nathan Zellner
Written by: David & Nathan Zellner
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, David Zellner, Nathan Zellner, Robert Forster
Comedy/Drama/Western - 113 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Jun 2018
Written by: David & Nathan Zellner
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, David Zellner, Nathan Zellner, Robert Forster
Comedy/Drama/Western - 113 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 27 Jun 2018
If Damsel was anything like its trailer, it would be one of the year’s best independent films full of new takes on old genres, quirk, bonhomie, and absurdity. However, the full-length cinematic version is full of new, yet obvious, takes on old genres, quirk, and a fatal dose of absurdity. The Zellner brothers create films so far out in left field, they make the Coen brothers appear like the traditional establishment. Their previous film, Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, even employs a Coen film as a plot point. There are witty and downright fascinating ideas lurking around in Damsel; yet, they are buried beneath a seven-layer dip of obfuscation. There is nothing wrong with the oddball. Indie audiences salivate for the unusual, the miscast, and the WTF?! But Damsel blows by all of those and settles on uncomfortable nonsense.
A gentleman, at some point in the post-Civil War 1800s, travels west to meet up with his fiancé and begin a happy homestead life. Audiences are familiar with this setup. This is going to be a western. The man will most likely experience adventures by way of bandits, grifters, and/or the natural elements. Perhaps it will turn into a Searchers experience where Indians kidnap the fiancé or the eastern dandy must prove himself worthy ala The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. We know the rules of the western. So do David and Nathan Zellner and they are having none of it.
A gentleman, at some point in the post-Civil War 1800s, travels west to meet up with his fiancé and begin a happy homestead life. Audiences are familiar with this setup. This is going to be a western. The man will most likely experience adventures by way of bandits, grifters, and/or the natural elements. Perhaps it will turn into a Searchers experience where Indians kidnap the fiancé or the eastern dandy must prove himself worthy ala The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. We know the rules of the western. So do David and Nathan Zellner and they are having none of it.
The Zellners take those ironclad western tropes and cliches and do something new with them. Notice I say new, not interesting. Samuel Alabaster (Robert Pattinson, The Lost City of Z) rows ashore on what must be the Pacific coast with a miniature horse named Butterscotch in tow. This “living conversation piece” and Samuel meet up with Parson Henry (David Zellner) in a stereotypical, fledgling western town so bare, the sagebrush threaten to take it away. Samuel pays the drunken Parson to venture out into the wilderness with him, where Indians and bears lurk, to unite in holy matrimony Samuel and his bride-to-be, Penelope (Mia Wasikowska, Alice Through the Looking Glass).
Along the way, Samuel provides the Parson with more and more details about Penelope’s situation and the duo’s true purpose. By the time the two arrive at their destination, the audience has no idea what to expect because our protagonist is steadily proving himself to be an unreliable character. At least we have Butterscotch. The entire enterprise flips on its head at this point and whatever quirk we were enjoying bellyflops off a cliff into an ocean of “what now?”
Damsel is bold, but no matter how original it is, that does not necessarily mean it is creative. Defying expectations is a commendable way to attack a western and twisting and turning the audience around so we have no clue where we’re headed is all well and good. But the Zellners leave too much on the table in favor of more familiar landscape shots and melancholy traveling scenes. We haphazardly jump from the ocean, to the desert, to the mountains; there is no hint to where this story is set. I suppose Oregon and California has all of three of those landscapes. We have no idea what year it is, but this story may just as well take place out of time.
I am most disappointed the Zellners only touch on the idea of white knight syndrome and intense loneliness. They had the opportunity to move beyond mere unrequited love and hit on the delusional and the sociology of gender roles in the Old West. Too often, though, they retreat to episodic comedy and borderline Three Stooges territory to achieve their awkward tone. What was Samuel’s immediate backstory? I realize Penelope is furious, she has every right to be, but that anger prevents movement and understanding. I suppose there is no real understanding of the absurd. Its role is to push our buttons and then trot away with a giggle. That is not the height of independent film, that is schoolyard foolishness.
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