A modern heroine fights against dragons and prejudices

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The word “Damsel” comes from French, from “demoiselle”. A “damsel in distress” is a damsel in distress, a persecuted innocence. One like Andromeda, who was saved from the wrath of Poseidon by Perseus in the Greek legend. Or Ann Darrow, who is freed by Jack Driscoll from the monkey love of the eight-meter gorilla King Kong. Medieval novels feature the damsel, and in folk tales the beautiful prince rescues her from the clutches of death or from the dominance of the evil stepmother. The woman in these stories is usually not herself – the knight has to go.

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However, there is no knight in the fantasy film “Damsel”, which is now starting on the streaming service Netflix. Only one prince, but he’s a slob. Although the stepmother is of good heart this time, there is an even colder mother-in-law, an evil queen who puts the damsel in a deadly position. But the beautiful bourgeois Elodie doesn’t want to accept her fate. Her motto: If you don’t have a knightly husband, then be chivalrous yourself, woman!

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Elodie is the daughter of a small lord whose lands are forced by hunger and cold to emigrate. Lord and Lady Bayford (played by Ray Winstone and Angela Bassett) hope that the marriage of the elders to the visually acceptable Prince Henry of the rich kingdom of Aurea will bring an end to the emergency. They travel to the wedding together with their little daughter Floria. Everything looks good at first – the country is green and thriving, and the fairytale castle has a touch of Neuschwanstein.

Young women by marriage are sacrificed to the dragon

But when Queen Isabelle draws Lady Banford’s attention to her lower status – “We need a bride, not family members” – her enthusiasm is put on the back burner. But by then everything is already too late.

Because the golden carriage doesn’t go on a honeymoon, but rather into the mountains, where, as we know from the fiery first minutes of the film by Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (“28 Weeks Later”), a fire-breathing dragon lives. He demands human sacrifices from the royals every year and through the trick of a blood sibling à la “Winnetou” the royal family saves themselves dragon food from their own line. Girls by marriage are thrown into the cave. The dragon smells the mixed blood and grills the damsels, who no one comes to help.

Millie Bobby Brown is also known to be defensive in other roles

“Stranger Things” star Millie Bobby Brown is the perfect choice for the dying princess who fights back. As Elfi in the Netflix teen horror series, she outgrew herself and as “Enola Holmes” she commanded respect from her big brother Sherlock in two detective comedies. As if by a miracle (not uncommon in fairy tales), Elodie does not die as a result of the prince’s push. With the action zest of Bruce Willis in “Die Hard,” she fights her way through the tubes and crevices of the cave, sheds more and more of her royal wedding robe and ultimately looks like a Jane without Tarzan and without the jungle.

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Time after time she manages to escape the murderous and victorious dragoness. The fact that the ghost of a predecessor whispers to her the truth about Aurea’s big lie, that ice-blue fireflies living in the depths of the dragon’s cave have much-needed healing powers, and that you can protect yourself from razor-sharp crystals with improvised socks is, well, hard to believe. A bit magical. But why not? After all, we are in one.

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Warning: This fairy tale is a bit too fiery for the very little ones

Only in fairy tales are the dragons eloquent like Smaug in Tolkien’s “Hobbit” and, if necessary, accessible to reason, instead of just being tamed beasts like Daenerys Targaryen’s mount Drogon in “Game of Thrones”. The dragoness also has to contribute to finding the truth, but this does not detract from her mercilessness until the end. How is this all supposed to end with “…and then they lived happily ever after”?

Will not be revealed here. “Damsel” is not exactly the fantasy classic that even your children will rave about, but it is still a play on the gender clichés in fairy tales that is well worth seeing. Speaking of children, here’s a warning: the execution may be a little too fiery for the very young viewers.

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“Damsel”, film, 109 minutes, directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, with Millie Bobby Brown, Shohreh Aghadashloo, Angela Bassett, Ray Winstone, Brooke Carter, Robin Wright, Milo Twomey (from March 8th on Netflix)