Damsel (2018)

rating: ****

the story: In the Old West, a young man goes on a quest to rescue the love of his life.

review: I've been a fan of Robert Pattinson since he showed up for a minor role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).  He later made his name in the Twilight movies, and has been working steadily in low profile starring roles ever since.  With last year's Good Time, Pattinson started receiving some critical appreciation.  He's become a kind of new Leonardo DiCaprio, whom he most closely resembles in style in Damsel, although his role choices have started to look a lot like the young Brad Pitt.  Little wonder that he's gone in either direction; hard to find any actors with more interesting careers than theirs, in an era that has increasingly challenged the continued validity of the lead actor concept.

Damsel seems to have confounded most viewers.  Is it meant to be a straight western?  If so, why is Pattinson so buggy in the lead role?  Or is it supposed to be a farce?  Then why all the nasty violence?  This ain't exactly Deadpool.  So what's the deal?

A damn fine piece of filmmaking, one of the more interesting efforts I've seen in recent years.  Directors David(who doubles as one of the main characters, a parson who's consistently in way over his head) and Nathan Zellner have no previous widely-known films under their belts (I know movies pretty well; their work seems to have fallen in the extremely limited release realm before Damsel), but their work here is a true revelation.  Beautiful cinematography on top of everything else, it's their storytelling that most singles them out.

And what exactly is the story of Damsel?  Because about halfway through, it completely switches tracks!  Pattinson's character is dead, and everything the story had suggested about him turns out to be false, and...we're never really given clarification.  It ends up being about Mia Wasikowska's "damsel" as she struggles to reclaim her sanity.  Pattinson shows up out of nowhere, suddenly less a daring-do romantic hero and more a psychotic murderer, who kills her husband before committing suicide once it becomes clear he never really had Wasikowska's heart...Yeah! 

It seems to be completely nuts.  But in such a good way!  The lack of answers actually works in Damsel's favor, ambiguity that's far too rare in mainstream movies (unless you're Christopher Nolan).  Pattinson is positively magnetic in his role, seems to have been positively born to play it.  Wasikowska, who has yet to have been fully embraced by critics despite years of excellent work, more than carries the movie in his absence.  If this is an experience that confounds viewers, it's also one that is difficult to ignore, and hopefully helps everyone involved attract greater notice in the future. 

Of course, Damsel gets a lot of extra credit for me from the opening sequence with Robert Forster, who's somehow never gotten the attention he deserved from his rediscovery in Jackie Brown (1997), where he effortlessly commands the screen with his unique charisma.  Yeah, his presence also helps set the tone for this one.

But the movie itself is so peculiarly compelling, that Damsel ought to at least earn a cult following.  It's like Seth MacFarlane's post-modern western A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014), but as a true work of art.