“There are many stories of chivalry where the heroic knight saves the damsel in distress. This is not one of them,” says Elodie, the protagonist, in the opening scene of Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s Netflix film Damsel, instantly setting the tone for a fantasy drama where a happily-ever-after and a Prince Charming are only things you have read in a book.

It is a world where a woman, be it a peasant or a princess, has to fend for herself, a world where a doting father can sacrifice his daughter for the sake of his kingdom, a world where no prince would come galloping to his princess’s rescue.

Damsel — with Millie Bobby Brown playing Elodie — begins with a straightforward once-upon-a-time only to take the heroine through a hellish path of lies, betrayal and sacrifices.

A poor princess is set up for sacrifice

Elodie is a princess from a poor kingdom ruled by her father (Ray Winstone) and her stepmother (Angela Bassett). She agrees to marry the wealthy prince of Aurea, Prince Henry, (Nick Robinson) in exchange for gold to save the starving people of her kingdom.

For the royal family of Aurea, the marriage is a setup to pick a girl every year — this time, it’s Elodie — who they offer to a fire-breathing dragon living in a cave as an annual ritual to repay an old debt. The royal family approaches girls from poor kingdoms with the offer of marriage and then passes them off to the dragon as daughters of the queen.

After the wedding, Elodie is taken to the cave entrance on the pretext of a ritual and then thrown into its pit as a meal for the dragon. The rest of the film is about whether Elodie can find a way to get out with her life.

Not a conventional fairy tale

What makes Damsel such a powerful fairy tale is the way in which it turns the damsel in distress trope on its head. After a gruesome night in the cave where she gets burnt and bruised, Elodie’s fight for survival begins in earnest, from making protective hand grips by tearing off bits of her dress to figuring out an escape route with the help of an old map.

There are several occasions when you think Prince Henry might show up just in time to lend Elodie a hand, but he never does. Her Prince Charming has pulled the rug from under her feet — much like in the modern world of relationships — by promising her a happily-ever-after and then thrusting her in the face of great danger. Shattered in every way but armed with the confidence that she can fight back, Elodie runs to rescue her sister, who is the next target of the Aurean royal family, once she is out of the cave.

Breaking the ‘wicked stepmother’ stereotype

Also, Elodie’s stepmother is no Lady Tremaine of Cinderella or Queen Grimhilde (the Evil Queen) from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett) is a kind woman who cares about her stepdaughter and does not want any harm to come to her.

Despite her initial readiness to get Elodie married without wasting time, Lady Bayford senses the dark things at play and tries to convince Elodie not to go through with it. Bassett’s character came as a heartwarming surprise, especially at the end when Elodie calls her “mother” for the first time.

Elodie draws from the strength of girls who came before her

On the day before her wedding, Elodie notices another princess in the castle, smiling at her from a window. Elodie smiles back, completely oblivious of why she is there. It is only when she is trapped in the cave that Elodie realises the girl too is a sacrificial goat, as were hundreds of others before her.

In one scene, Elodie hallucinates the previous victims guiding her towards her freedom. Her determination, will power and tenacity, she declares towards the end of the film, are dedicated to “every innocent woman whose life was stolen down here”.

Millie Bobby Brown channels her inner Enola Holmes

Millie, for whom Damsel marks a break from teen shows such as Stranger Things, channels her inner Enola Holmes from the 2020 film where she played detective Sherlock Holmes’s sister who embarks on a journey to search for her mother all by herself.

Elodie is just as headstrong as Enola — both rely on their wits to survive — and just like the dauntless Holmes girl who doesn’t crack even under great pressure, Elodie comes kicking and screaming out of adversity.

Millie embodies her character’s despair, resilience and rage with an intensity that instantly makes you root for her. “There’s a piece of Elodie in everyone and you can channel that whenever you want to,” said Millie in a promotional video in the runup to the film’s release, and one couldn’t agree more.