"This is the end of your story."
Hello everyone!
I then turn around and realize I'm historically late, yet again, with something else entirely.
I mean, at this point, it's a given and a trend really LOL.
I wasn't all that keen on this movie when it first released back in 2024, not for any other reason than I just wasn't feeling it at the time.
But it popped up on my suggestions recently and it has a decent enough length that I don't have to sacrifice years of my life to sitting in front of the television screen, so I figured, why not?
I like Millie when she's playing Enola, so it stands to reason I'm probably going to like her in other roles of hers (even though I've never seen Stranger Things).
So without further ado, let's travel to some fantasy land nobody knows about, and see whether or not we could have saved ourselves as cleverly as Millie did in Damsel.
There are no links at the bottom of this page because this particular movie isn't really connected to anything - there might have been Eragon, but I sadly don't have that one on here yet.
Speaking off ... lemme make a note on that real quick.
ANYWAY.
Damsel begins with Princess Elodie narrating, and then the camera panning to Millie chopping wood in full glam makeup (no shade to either part of this sentence, but, the makeup IS a bit much in this one on the whole) because it's the dead of winter, the people are desperate, there's little of everything, and everyone seems to be leaving.
That's when she's told by her father that the neighbouring kingdom wants Elodie to marry the crown prince, and are willing to pay a substantial amount as the bride price.
So, Elodie, her younger sister Floria, her father and her stepmother board the boat to this kingdom, which seems to be always warm and thriving and there are weird lights going on around the tall mountain peaks standing menacingly above the town.
The stepmother is no fool and smells a rat somewhere, asking her husband the hell did he actually do, because he doesn't seem happy with the entire thing, either, but he always shuts her down rather menacingly when she asks.
I love the actor - Ray Winstone is a hoot - and I will always see him as Bors from King Arthur. Enough said.
The marriage happens, then Elodie and her new husband go up the mountain to pay respects to the prince's ancestors, who apparently came to the island, found dragons there, and got into an altercation which ended when the first king sacrificed his three daughters to the beast. They then offer three drops of blood every year in remembrance.
Cute story. Might have even fooled everyone if the prince didn't drop Elodie off the narrow bridge and down into the dragon's chasm after mingling his blood with hers.
For some inexplicable reason, this gives Elodie a royal scent, even though she continues bleeding and burning and whatever else throughout the movie, which should have revealed her blood is her own, not inherently royal, but I digress.
The point is, she's the sacrifice, not her blood alone, and she's going to survive if it's the last thing she does.
Playing hide-and-seek with the dragon (voiced brilliantly by Shohreh Aghdashloo, mind), she finds a safe place with evidence others had hidden there before her, surprisingly. More sacrifices survived than she'd initially though, up until this point at least, and they mapped out the entire system so she can then proceed to the nearest exist.
Right after, that is, some more hiding, and finding that the glowworms she only thought to use for light are actually really good little healers, so she apologizes to them and makes sure to treat them nicely afterwards.
Unfortunately, she can't escape the way the women thought they might, because the crack is too far up the mountain, BUT.
Her dad's here with some men.
He feels terrible, but when the dragon catches him, and he knows Elodie is hiding just out of sight, he refuses to call her, instead telling her to never reveal herself and to survive at all cost.
So she does, escaping the same way the men came in, and the dragon rains fiery hell into the clouds and over the kingdom, prompting the queen to somehow know Elodie didn't do the proper and obedient thing and die, and she takes her sister Floria as sacrifice in her stead.
Learning this from her wounded stepmother (a knife to the abdomen is apparently no big deal), Elodie turns right back round and goes into full battle mode, not only rescuing her sister, but outsmarting the dragon enough to weaken it so she can actually talk to the thing.
By this point she knows the royal family lied: they weren't attacked. They attacked first, killing the dragon's innocent and helpless hatchlings just because they could, so she's been exacting her vengeance of three ever since, not that it's brought her any peace back. She's the last of her line, after all.
But Elodie tells her, psyche, you've been totally had, because you've been killing innocents, too, and the royals have been tricking you for years. I can help you get revenge.
She uses the glow worms to heal the dragon, and then crashes the last, third wedding (the choreography to make sure these girls didn't meet and never knew of one another is a spectacular example of great planning), exposing the entire truth and letting the dragon do as she would.
Which is to say, she dracarys-es the heck out of everything and everyone and the entire castle - and everyone in it - burns. Balerion would be proud.
Elodie, Floria and their stepmother grab enough to survive a couple of winters and then head on back home, with the dragon in tow, because if you're going into colder climates, it might pay to have a living furnace nearby.
They've saved the day and themselves, and that's the important bit!
An entertaining and occasionally a good jump-scare inducing flick, Damsel is actually a pretty good movie because about three quarters of it is spent purely with Millie all by her lonesome. It must have been interesting to film!
I liked the more feline depiction of the dragon itself, too, and the moral of the story, not to mention that the damsel ended up saving herself in the end.
It's not winning any Oscars, that's true, but it's enough for a nice afternoon movie!
xx
*images and video not mine
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