Netflix film “Damsel” distinguishes itself in its familiar genre territory to some degree via its feisty heroine to remember. As reflected by the very title of the movie, she suddenly finds herself becoming your average damsel in distress, but she quickly becomes quite ready to do anything for her survival, and you will certainly come to root for her more as watching how she defiantly keeps fighting against her immense distress even without any prince coming to the rescue.

Early in the story, we get to know about how things have been hard and difficult for Elodie (Millie Bobby Brown), the elder daughter of a poor lord governing over some remote northern land. Because many people in this land have been struggling a lot due to the lack of food and resource, Elodie sincerely wants to help as much as possible, and then there comes an unexpected opportunity for her to help her father and the people of his land a lot. The queen regnant of a rich and powerful kingdom called Aurea sends a marriage proposal for her son, and Elodie agrees to travel to Aurea along with her family even though she is not so willing to marry a lad she has never met before.

Right upon their arrival in Aurea, Elodie and her family are quite impressed by the hospitality from the queen and her royal family and servants, and it seems that Elodie can be actually happy here with her future husband for the rest of her life, but then her stepmother comes to suspect and fear for the worst – especially after seeing how her husband becomes rather taciturn about whatever is arranged between him and the queen during their little private meeting. Although she and her stepdaughters are not that close to each other, she really becomes quite concerned about what may happen next to Elodie, but Elodie does not pay much attention to her stepmother’s words as everything seems pretty fine as far as she can see.

Of course, as already shown to us during the opening scene and then indirectly implied by the whispering chant in the score by David Fleming, there is a terrible fate waiting for her from the very beginning, and Elodie belatedly comes to realize that not long after her glorious wedding ceremony. She is immediately taken to the cave inside a nearby mountain, and then she is going to be another young girl to be sacrificed to a big dragon living there.

Once she clearly discerns what is going to happen to her after getting thrown into the pit connected to the dragon’s lair, Elodie is certainly scared a lot, but she does not lose her will and courage at all – even when she eventually encounters the dragon and its unforgiving fiery power. After managing to evade the dragon, she soon begins to search for any possibility for her escape and survival, and we accordingly get several grim moments including the one chillingly showing how many girls were sacrificed before her.

As many of you know, strong female movie characters are much more common these days, but Dan Mazeau’s screenplay does more than merely subverting its genre elements, and it does pay some attention to fleshing out its heroine before pushing her through a series of challenges to overcome. As steadily sticking to its heroine’s desperate attempts to survive, the movie surely depends a lot on the presence and charisma of its lead actress, and Millie Bobby Brown, a wonderful British actress who has been mainly known for her Emmy-nominated turn in Netflix drama series “Stranger Things”, is certainly the right lead performer who can bring an ample amount of plucky personality to our heroine. To be frank with you, I personally wish she made another Enola Holmes movie instead, but she ably demonstrates her undeniable star quality again, and, folks, that is more than enough in my inconsequential opinion.

Meanwhile, we get to know more about what has made the dragon so mean and vicious, and you may actually feel a bit sorry for the dragon even though it is still as menacing as that terrifying dragon in “Dragonslayer” (1981). Shohreh Aghdashloo, an exceptional Iranian and American actress whom I still remember for her poignant Oscar-supporting turn in “House of Sand and Fog” (2003), gives a really scary voice performance to unnerve you at every word, and her CGI character effectively functions as the daunting foe for our heroine.

The main weakness of the movie is how many of other main characters in the story are relatively flat and colorless in comparison, but that feels like a minor flaw at least during my viewing thanks to its several dependable main cast members. While she may look like doing a medieval version of her character in Netflix drama series “House of Cards”, Robin Wright plays her character with some sly gusto, and Ray Winston and Angela Bassett do more than required by their rather thankless supporting parts, and younger performer Brooke Carter is also well-cast as Elodie’s dear younger sister.

On the whole, “Damsel”, which is directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, is your typical standard fantasy adventure movie which may not surprise you that much, but it is entertaining enough for recommendation mainly because of the game efforts from Brown and several other performers around her. Like “Spaceman”, another recent Netflix film I happened to watch on the same day, the movie actually does not bring anything particularly new to its genre, but it did its job as much as intended while bringing some nice modern touches, and I will not grumble for now because I had a fair share of entertainment from it at last night.