Review | Netflix movie review: Damsel – Millie Bobby Brown of Stranger Things and Enola Holmes fame presents modern take on a young princess’ story
- Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Damsel sees Millie Bobby Brown as a princess who has been tricked into being literal fodder for a fire-breathing dragon
- Brown and Shohreh Aghdashloo, who voices the dragon, are wonderfully cast but the other characters are reduced to shallow, insignificant stereotypes
3/5 stars
Fairy tales in a post-Game of Thrones wonderland need to wield significantly more bite if they are to be taken seriously, and Millie Bobby Brown presents her young fans with a thoroughly modern take on the damsel-in-distress in the action-packed fantasy Damsel.
After headlining Netflix’s runaway smash hit Stranger Things, the 20-year-old actress cemented her relationship with the streaming giant by producing and starring in a brace of successful Enola Holmes adventures.
Damsel sees Brown take an executive producer credit in addition to playing Princess Elodie, a plucky young princess who agrees to an arranged marriage – only to discover she is to be sacrificed to a giant, fire-breathing dragon.
Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, best known for helming horror sequel 28 Weeks Later, Damsel looks to subvert a number of long-standing fairy tale clichés – but in recent years, even Disney has copped to this strategy.
We are now at a point where watching a capable young woman eschew tradition and take her fate into her own hands is no longer a surprise, but rather the new normal.
