"Damsels In Distress"

Yesterday afternoon, Joe the Plumber and I went down to the Tower Theater and saw "Damsels In Distress".

Sacramento is even more represented in this movie than usual because both Greta Gerwig and Analeigh Tipton, both St. Francis High School alumni, are at the top of the movie's cast list.

(Justin Cerne is listed as choreographer, but I remember that when Sacramento's Jenifer Foote came to visit from New York last year, she said that Greta Gerwig was one of her dancing students, so maybe there is even more Sacramento on the screen here than many people realize.)

The movie is enveloped in a choking miasma of self-involved dialogue, but like in a Woody Allen film, that miasma is a feature, not a bug. The four young ladies at the center of the film are all very charming and attractive. They hold forth on various topics to charmingly idiotic extremes (I particularly liked Greta Gerwig as she defended the use of trite and hackneyed expressions in the English language, as representing the distillation of centuries worth of experience and wisdom).

Oddly enough, I thought the best monologue of the movie didn't come from any of the four young women at all, but from a minor character (Thor; played by Billy Magnussen). Thor's early education was stymied by over-involved parents, and the declaration of his intention to get an education is simultaneously very noble and the most ridiculous thing I've heard in years. A real gem, that monologue is! The best monologue, ever!

One of Salon's fashion reviewers, Mark Oppenheimer had an odd take on the movie. He couldn't precisely pin down the movie's era, based on clothing, and that non-specificity really bothered him. As a fellow who tracks down 'Breaking Bad' sites, I can understand that mental disturbance non-specificity creates (in my case, location), but it shouldn't really bother people who are outside the East Coast, Ivy League circuit. Once again, the miasma surrounding the movie is a feature, not a bug.

What does Roger Ebert think of "Damsels In Distress"?:

It's delightful and a little bewildering to find a 2012 comedy that evokes a world that exists only in the novels of P.G. Wodehouse. Whit Stillman's "Damsels in Distress" creates Seven Oaks College, a school so innocent and naive that only it could believe in itself. Its heroine, Violet Wister, is one of the daffiest characters in recent movies, who believes one of the noble callings of women is to date men who are their inferiors, and thus lift them up.

..."Damsels in Distress" is the fourth film (and the first since 1998) by Whit Stillman, who as a younger man, looked like F. Scott Fitzgerald and spoke like someone who had learned the language through sophisticated comic novels. He made a kind of movie nobody else was making, about rich and privileged young people moving in the very best circles — which is to say, their own. He called them the "urban haute bourgeoisie." They consider "yuppie" a term of praise. His "Metropolitan" (1990), about a young man hoping to win acceptance from such snobs, was a considerable hit, in part because no one had seen a movie like it unless one possibly running in black and white at 3 a.m. on TCM. Then came "Barcelona" (1994) and "The Last Days of Disco" (1998). What they had in common is that the supporting cast of a Fred Astaire comedy could have wandered in and not been noticed.

...Violet of course must have a posse; friends who are not quite as tall or (in her mind) not quite as pretty. They flank her, because Violet must always be centered. On the first day of the new school year, we meet them: Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) and Heather (Carrie MacLemore), who both instinctively stand just a step behind her. Violet has ESP when it comes to picking out new recruits, and she and her friends sweep down upon Lily (Analeigh Tipton), a campus newcomer. Lily will be their new roommate. Thus will all of Lily's wardrobe, behavioral and boyfriend problems be handled for the next few years.

...The movie almost inevitably contains a campus musical, centering on Violet's new dance craze, the Sambola. This is not an inspired dance craze, nor is the musical destined for Broadway, but inspired by Violet, they are all perfectly rehearsed and keep on smiling, and their good nature is impossible to resist.

The last Greta Gerwig movie I saw was "Arthur", which I also saw with Joe The Plumber. What did Joe think of this film? Thumbs up!