Damsels In Distress
[DVD]

Description

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION Damsels in Distressfollows a trio of beautiful girls who set out to revolutionize life at a grungy East Coast College – the dynamic leader Violet Wister (Greta Gerwig), principled Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and sexy Heather (Carrie MacLemore). They welcome transfer student Lily (Analeigh Tipton) into their group, which seeks to help severely depressed students with a program of good hygiene and musical dance numbers. The girls become romantically entangled with a series of men — including slick Charlie (Adam Brody), dreamboat Xavier (Hugo Becker) and the mad frat boys Frank (Ryan Metcalf) and Thor (Billy Magnussen)—who threaten the girls’ friendship and sanity... Bonus Features * Commentary with Writer/Director Whit Stillman and Cast * Damsels in Distress: Behind the Scenes * An Evening with Damsels in Distress: Q&A with Whit Stillman and Cast * Great Lotion AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW Writer-director Whit Stillman let more than a decade lapse between 1998's Last Days of Disco and 2012's Damsels in Distress. Happily, the Whit and wisdom (and slightly pixilated screwball style) did not diminish one iota during Stillman's layoff: Damsels is literate and daffy in equal measure. It's tempting to describe the movie's subject as Clueless-in-college, as it features a group of young women who share a very specific set of theories and rules about behaviour between the sexes. In particular, Violet (Greta Gerwig) and her sidekicks Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and Heather (Carrie MacLemore) descend upon Lily (Analeigh Tipton), a newcomer at a tony Ivy League (or Ivy League-ish) university, with a mind toward "helping" the gawky--but by no means helpless, really--coed. Violet is full of curious ideas about men, which she delivers with full confidence, even though her theories don't play all that well in reality. Gerwig (from Greenberg and many indie titles) makes a meal of this role, her wide-eyed sincerity and deadpan drawl perfectly suited to Stillman's cheerfully stylised dialogue. In fact, the entire film takes place inside a sun-washed cocoon even more tightly knit than Stillman's previous movies; there's little hint of the real world here, just a comedy of manners closer to the universe of Oscar Wilde and Preston Sturges than the place you went to college. And yet some truths come along, which gives a tang to the wackiness. And now, everybody do the international dance craze known as the Sambola! --Robert Horton

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