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★★★½☆
20 June 2018
A movie review of DAMSEL. |
“Technically speaking, everywhere is Indian country I reckon,” Samuel (Robert Pattinson)
DAMSEL is an indie western that taps into one particular aspect of toxic masculinity: The stalker. This is a gender reversal Wild West FATAL ATTRACTION (1987). Having a male heartthrob as the obsessed removes looks as a factor. No woman is owed to a man. While DAMSEL has wit to accompany its social commentary, the first half feels too much like the ace SLOW WEST (2015). When DAMSEL veers away halfway through, it continues the theme with similar deadpan humour and no sufferance for fools and the entitled.
DAMSEL is an indie western that taps into one particular aspect of toxic masculinity: The stalker. This is a gender reversal Wild West FATAL ATTRACTION (1987). Having a male heartthrob as the obsessed removes looks as a factor. No woman is owed to a man. While DAMSEL has wit to accompany its social commentary, the first half feels too much like the ace SLOW WEST (2015). When DAMSEL veers away halfway through, it continues the theme with similar deadpan humour and no sufferance for fools and the entitled.
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The tone of the movie is set out immediately. A desert encounter between two men: One heading west full of hope, the other returning east despondent. The latter is a preacher (Robert Forster), a droll pessimistic realist. The scene is there to get the audience acclimatised.
When we meet the ostensible lead, Samuel, he enters a town in no fashion the way Clint Eastwood would. One of his front teeth is capped and his barnet has a misguided middle parting, efficiently making Samuel unthreatening to his fellow man. Compounding his out of place appearance is a guitar strung to his back and a miniature horse trailing. The latter, Butterscotch, is a bridal gift for his fiancé, Penelope (Mia Wasikowska). The town is of course oddball. A man is hanged for the crimes of skulduggery, skull thuggery and skull buggery. This is not ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1968).
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Samuel is articulate and seemingly self-aware, and shows how a veneer of intelligence can mask self-delusion. He has hired Parson Henry (co-director David Zellner) to officiate the wedding. Samuel reveals to Henry that Penelope has been kidnapped and needs to be rescued. You can probably guess what the real situation is.
DAMSEL is about how one pathetic man has the ability to cause chaos. And the world is full of them. Like television show THE OFFICE, there is a misanthropy: Everyone is pretty stupid bar the minority.
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