Brooke Carter

Subverting fairy tale tropes has become somewhat a trope in itself. Damsel starring Millie Bobby Brown does nothing particular to add to the feminist conversation surrounding the empowerment of young women — if anything it takes from it. Damsel is unfortunately a minor and forgettable action driven dark fantasy fairy tale. The themes are at odds with how the film is presented. There is no mystery or intrigue, the characterisation is flat, and the story happens precisely the way one expects it to. There needs to be more films about empowering young women, and a failure such as Damsel might do more damage than good to the cause of depicting self-defined heroines in cinema.