Damsel Reimagines the Fairy Tale: A Princess Fights for Survival

There are numerous tales of chivalry in which the valiant knight rescues the unfortunate maiden. In the first scene in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's Netflix film Damsel, Elodie, the protagonist, declares, "This is not one of them," immediately establishing the tone for a fantasy drama in which a happily-ever-after and a Prince Charming are simply things you have read about in books.

In this world, a woman—whether a princess or a peasant—must fend for herself. A devoted parent may sacrifice his daughter to further his realm. No prince would galloping in to save his princess.

Millie Bobby Brown plays Elodie in the film Damsel, which starts out as a simple once-upon-a-time story before leading the heroine down a terrible path of deceit, treachery, and sacrifice.

A helpless princess is made to pay the price

Elodie is a princess from a destitute kingdom that is governed by her stepmother, Angela Bassett, and her father, Ray Winstone. In order to preserve her kingdom's starving populace, she consents to marry Prince Henry (Nick Robinson), the affluent prince of Aurea, in exchange for gold.

The marriage serves as a pretext for the Aurea royal family to select a girl each year—Elodie this time—whom they then present to a fire-breathing dragon that lives in a cave as a yearly ceremony to settle an old debt. By offering them marriage, the royal family entices girls from underprivileged realms, passing them off to the dragon as the queen's daughters.

Following the nuptials, Elodie is brought to the cave's entrance under the guise of a rite before being dropped into its pit to feed the dragon. Whether Elodie is able to go on with her life is the main focus of the remaining portion of the movie.

Not your typical fairy tale

The way Damsel flips the cliché of the damsel in distress is what makes it such a potent fairy tale. After spending a horrifying night in the cave where she suffers burns and bruises, Elodie starts her battle for survival. She uses an ancient map to locate an escape route and to make protective hand grips out of pieces of her garment.

There are multiple instances where you would expect Prince Henry would arrive in time to help Elodie, yet he never does. Similar to the modern realm of romances, her Prince Charming has pulled the rug out from under her by promising her a happily-ever-after and then putting her into grave danger. Once she emerges from the cave, Elodie, broken in every way but with the knowledge that she can fight back, rushes to save her sister, who is the next in line for the Aurean royal family's wrath.

Dispelling the myth of the "wicked stepmother"

Furthermore, Elodie's stepmother is not the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or Lady Tremaine from Cinderella. Lady Bayford, played by Angela Bassett, is a good-hearted person who loves her stepdaughter and wants the best for her.

Lady Bayford initially wanted to marry Elodie right away, but she soon realized there were sinister forces at work, so she tried to talk Elodie out of it. It was a delightful surprise to discover Bassett's character, particularly when Elodie refers to her as "mother" for the first time at the conclusion.

Elodie finds strength in the resilience of the females who came before her.

Elodie sees another princess in the castle the day before her wedding, grinning at her through a window. Elodie, who has no idea why she's there, smiles back. Elodie doesn't understand that the girl and hundreds of other goats before her are also sacrifices until she finds herself stranded in the cave.

Elodie experiences hallucinations of the past victims guiding her to freedom in one scenario. She says toward the end of the movie that her persistence, willpower, and drive are committed to "every innocent woman whose life was stolen down here."

A glimpse of Millie Bobby Brown's inner Enola Holmes

Damsel's character Millie, who takes a hiatus from young series like Stranger Things, harnesses her inner Enola Holmes from the 2020 movie, in which she played the sister of investigator Sherlock Holmes, who sets out on a solo quest to find her mother.

Elodie is exactly as stubborn as Enola is; both depend on cunning to get by. Like the fearless Holmes girl who remains unflappable in the face of extreme hardship, Elodie rises to the occasion.

With such emotion, Millie captures the wrath, resiliency, and misery of her character that you can't help but cheer for her. In an advertisement for the movie released prior to its premiere, Millie stated, "There's a piece of Elodie in everyone and you can channel that whenever you want to," and we wholeheartedly agree.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Press Time staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.