Sometimes, an artist's newest work differs so much from his previous work that it makes me wonder if I had misinterpreted all of the previous work. Fifteen minutes into Whit Stillman's latest film, Damsels in Distress, the self-doubt started to creep in. Was I really watching a Whit Stillman film?
True, the film is littered with Whit Stillman signatures. Like his previous work, Damsels is about bourgeois young people trying to figure out their places in the world. Like his other films Last Days of Disco (made in 1998 but set in the early 1980s) and Metropolitan (1990), Damsels goes for a retro look. Much of the film looks like it was shot through Vaselined lens, harkening back to classic Hollywood. Set on a college campus, the film's coeds are dressed anachronistically in button down shirts, cardigans, and pleated skirts. Even the main character, played by Greta Gerwig, looks like the protagonist of Last Days of Disco (1998), played by Chloe Sevigny with their shoulder length blonde hair and expressive round eyes.
But beyond the visuals, the plot and characters seemed like a bad imitation of Stillman. While Stillman's characters have never been sympathetic, They are usually well drawn and realistic. Stillman’s previous three films, Metropolitan, Barcelona (1994), and Last Days of Disco all feature spoiled twentysomethings who think they have profound ideas. They make unsavory remarks like "I've always planned to be a failure. That's why I plan to marry a very wealthy woman." One young man's existential crisis in Barcelona is whether he has been shaving incorrectly his entire life. The audience is typically invited to laugh at them and not with them.
If Stillman is trying to make a broader statement in his previous films, it is that our culture has made these young people this way. Metropolitan might be the most obvious example of this. It follows a Princeton student, Tom Townsend, the holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s when he is at home in New York City. Tom is invited as a date with his friends on the deb ball circuit. However, Tom's background presents a problem since he's from the Upper West Side with an artsy father while all his friends are from the classier Upper East Side—a classic fish out of water story. The fundamental absurdity is that Tom is even considered an outsider in the first place. This absurdity condemns the entire concept of "society." The characters' bad behavior can be attributed to the strict, arbitrary lines drawn by society.
Damsels sticks with the young people as fools formula, but lacks any real heft. Here, the main target of audience laughter is Violet (Gerwig), a self-righteous coed who heads a suicide prevention center on campus. at one point, she tells a professor that Richard Strauss invented the waltz and that a man named Charleston invented the Charleston. Both these statements are false. The plot--if you can call it that-- is that Violet and her two pals invite a fourth girl, Lily, into their circle. The four engage in various dalliances with boys throughout. these dalliances are mostly absurd, invoking no sympathy for any of the girls. Despite her pretentious, Violet is in love with a dumb frat boy who goes around saying inane things. Lily lets her love interest convince her that his religion only permits anal sex. There may be a general critique of the college hook up culture, but this critique is lacking when it doesn’t link to the characters at all. Indeed, there’s no sense of why the characters act the way they do. Some flashbacks suggest that Violet was an abandoned young child, but why is she so obsessed with the suicide prevention center now? Damsels is full of obvious laughs. The opening credit sequence introduces the young ladies as “The Damsels” and then the young men as “Their Distress.” Damsels does provide plenty of laughs but very little food for thought.