In anyone’s mind, anyone would think nowadays that dark comedies are considered some of the best made when it comes to this generation. However, the best ones out there are when they parody westerns. Examples include Gore Verbinski’s Rango and Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight. In perfect relation, they are done like a medium-rare steak from Ruth Chris’. Meanwhile, a new, group of brothers by the last name of Zellner decide to take this other wordly concept and create this ironic motion picture named Damsel.
The film’s story tells on the perspective of Samuel, a laid-out, love-obsessed human being from the wild, wild west, who has a secret relationship with a young woman by the name of Penelope (Mia Wasikowska), a beautiful and logical female. This develops from Samuel along with Old Preacher (Robert Forster) to set up an anticipated journey to find his lost love suffering in an uncomfortable, small cabin where evil human prey is abound. The rest of this film you need to really go blind since this is not just wholly original, but also rapidly unpredictable as well.
In the year of 2018, there have been some instant modern classics like the comical ‘The Death of Stalin’, the criminal and naive ‘Beast’, the distasteful environment of Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Unsane’, and there you have probably the most wacky, high, and original western motion pictures I have seen since Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 masterpiece, ‘Django Unchained’, ‘Damsel’. Never have I been blown away from a dark comedy that just left me in my head like, “How will the loosened ends develop?”. This is what you want out of a original film like this: compelling storytelling, character studying, hard-hitting emotions, and most importantly, sharp twists and turns anyone would never expect.
This to my belief is the Zellner brothers debut and the overall scope and cinematography from the opening shot to the closing shot looks beyond marvelous in beautiful sight. Their inspiration flat out inspires not just Tarantino, but also the Coen Brothers especially with movies like No Country for Old Men and Fargo with their ironic and nerve-wrecking tones they deliver. I can see them definitely making more original pictures in the future since they succeed on developing tone in a dark comedy like this. Think of them as Taylor Sheridan (Wind River, Hell or High Water) is meeting mentally insane fanboys who are obsessed of watching Gunsmoke and Bonanza every single day of their life.
Not just that, but the performances are mind blowing phenomenal that they are close to something you would see in a play like something from A Raisin in the Sun, where the problems and fate encompass around the characters so raw. It did give me the feel of something similar like 2016s ‘Fences’. Robert Pattinson plays as the love-struck Samuel, who is rebellious and opinionated on the subject. He is really giving some hard consistency to his career ever since I saw his performance in last year’s Good Time. The thing I admire about Pattinson lately in movies is that he knows how to exhibit character and emotion realistically without making it too bland for the audience at the same time.
Same thing with Mia Wasikowska (Penelope) and Robert Forster. They completely feel both the energy and emotion within the original, fresh storytelling of the movie. A thing I love about Wasikowska in this movie is that she portrays such a strong female lead like Charlize Theron’s Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road where her human aspects later in the film just define Penelope’s strengths. She also defines the heartbroken feeling of Samuels relationship with her to the point that she feels desperate of him.
For every other raw aspect of her character, people need to seriously witness this for themselves since Wasikowsa is extremely progressive in this film.
For anyone who is missing out completely original, hard-hitting dark comedies that work in every single rewarding form, people need to witness this new making of a modern classic that will go down as one of the best dark comedy westerns in years. The Zellner Brothers regardless of potential non-Oscar consideration, need to get completely recognized for their smart and fresh screenplay and direction they incorporated into this picture. This can go down as not just one of the best films of the year, but one of the best westerns I have ever seen, period.
Grade: A+
