What writer-director Whit Stillman does really well is bring us unto the world of old money Eastern preppies with their refined manners and their odd customs like debutante balls. His well-educated characters have earnest late-night existential conversations in complete sentences. Nobody else does this, and Stillman’s dialogue has always kept me wholly absorbed. That’s why I liked his films Metropolitan and Barcelona so much.
What Stillman does not do well is absurdist film, like his current entry, Damsels in Distress, set in a Northeastern liberal arts college that is decidedly non-Ivy. Indie film darling Greta Gerwig plays the seriously off-kilter leader of some coeds who are intent on rescuing fellow students from depression, fashion mistakes and bad hygiene, whether they want it or not.
While his earlier films were earnestly realistic, Damsels is way over the top. The girls’ boyfriends are so stupid that one does not yet know his colors. Gerwig’s character is so obviously disturbed that anyone, even a horny college male, would run the other way.
That means that the patter of Stillman’s dialogue must carry the day, and it fails him. Gerwig’s two friends are one-note jokes – one profoundly stupid, the other profoundly suspicious – that aren’t that funny the first time. There are lame body odor jokes. The fraternity system uses Roman, rather than Greek letters – which is not the sidesplitter that Stillman may imagine.
For sure, there are some funny moments. At the campus Suicide Prevention Center (the word “Prevention” keeps falling off the sign) Gerwig offers a fellow student a doughnut, but then snatches it back after one bite when she discovers that he isn’t the suicidal one. One student has adopted the Cathar religion, which he associates with a certain sexual practice. But, over all, the movie is not funny. Worst of all, it’s not engaging.
Analeigh Tipton, who was very good as the smitten babysitter in Crazy Stupid Love, does especially well again as a transfer student who falls under Gerwig’s wing.
My recommendations: 1) Stillman should leave the absurdism to Bunuel and 2) the rest of us can skip Damsels to watch Metropolitan and Barcelona.