2011 - DAMSELS IN DISTRESS, an attempt at a "civilized" comedy

From cultist comedy director Whit Stillman, who after a very long break between films comes this comedy about college life.  Greta Gerwig the future director of Little Women and Barbie is Violet Wister who along with a group of college girls, run a suicide prevention center.  The center's idea of working with suicidal people is to feed them donuts and coffee and have them take up tap dancing as a form of therapy.  The film pivots to the love lives of the girls and has a lot of amusing and occasionally funny moments involving smelly college guys and discussions about sex as practiced by members of a religious sect called Catharism.

The writer/director Whit Stillman specialized in these kinds of what I can only describe as very coy comedies beginning with Metropolitian, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco.  Stillman is not a prolific writer.  There was about a 13 year break between The Last Days of Disco and Damsels in Distress.  Everyone talks in a rather mannered, (some would say stilted) way. Overall Stillman's films are kind of an acquired taste.

 

What the film really has going for it is the performance of Greta Gerwig.  Her character of Violet Wister is very funny as she attempts to bring a civilizing influence to a bunch of drunk college frat boys.  The film is worth watching for her alone. Overall this film is entertaining if you are in the mood for some real eccentric humor.  This film is so strange it even has a couple of musical numbers tacked on to the end of it.

The film runs 99 minutes.