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Don't know if I'll be able to fully embrace Brody-as-Eigeman-surrogate, but I am very pleased about Gerwig, who's clearly a perfect match for Stillman (something I should've anticipated, but is clearly evident from the clips).

Not really a review per se, but Norm Wilner likes it a lot.

Cronenfly wrote:Don't know if I'll be able to fully embrace Brody-as-Eigeman-surrogate

No one can replace Eigeman. NO ONE.

Anhedionisiac wrote:

Cronenfly wrote:Don't know if I'll be able to fully embrace Brody-as-Eigeman-surrogate

No one can replace Eigeman. NO ONE.

But he can't fight father time! Especially when Stillman usually makes movies about young people.

Would have liked to catch this, but tickets for all the DiD screenings at TIFF seem to be sold out already.

Just passed by the BBFC, 15 for cinema release. Sony will be distributing it here, though no date as yet.

Saw this today. I loved "METROPOLITAN", but found "LAST DAYS" went way too far into the soapy satirical style, I just didn't care about anything or anyone involved with it. It's an exercise in smugness. And "DAMSELS" takes that style even further than you may expect. So "DISCO" fans will definitely appreciate it, if no one else.

Anyone else notice the poster features Stillman alums Taylor Nichols and Carolyn Farina as part of the cast? I haven't heard them mentioned anywhere else. I hope that still leaves room for an Eigeman cameo.

If this goes wide enough I think it might just break tumblr

NYT Mag: Whit Stillman and the Song of the Preppy.

Bit late I know, but for anyone in London there is a screening tonight and Q&A with Stillman at the Everyman in Islington. Still tickets left at time of writing.

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Professor Wagstaff wrote:Anyone else notice the poster features Stillman alums Taylor Nichols and Carolyn Farina as part of the cast? I haven't heard them mentioned anywhere else. I hope that still leaves room for an Eigeman cameo.

As per the unfinished cut Stillman shared at Harvard a few weeks back

Spoiler

Nichols has a one, maybe two scenes playing a literature professor. I noticed Farina's name in the end credits but couldn't recall seeing her onscreen. Eigeman, according to Stillman, is reluctant to act of late, preferring to focus on directing and thus didn't take a role in Damsels. Stillman mentioned which role he wanted him for and it would have been predictably hilarious, I'm sure.

Applesauce wrote:

Professor Wagstaff wrote:Anyone else notice the poster features Stillman alums Taylor Nichols and Carolyn Farina as part of the cast? I haven't heard them mentioned anywhere else. I hope that still leaves room for an Eigeman cameo.

As per the unfinished cut Stillman shared at Harvard a few weeks back

Spoiler

Nichols has a one, maybe two scenes playing a literature professor. I noticed Farina's name in the end credits but couldn't recall seeing her onscreen. Eigeman, according to Stillman, is reluctant to act of late, preferring to focus on directing and thus didn't take a role in Damsels. Stillman mentioned which role he wanted him for and it would have been predictably hilarious, I'm sure.

Farina's cameo is as a diner waitress. Her looks have altered over the last two decades, but her voice is unmistakable.

I'm a fan of Metropolitan. I thought Barcelona wasn't successful, and Disco merely okay. I found much of Damsels painful to watch. Stillman has steadily moved away from writing quirky characters (which he did well) and now is providing us with Quirks personified. There aren't any real people in this film. A shame.

Hmm. I prefer "quirks personified" (Rohmer, Ferreri) to "quirky characters" (500 Days of Summer, Little Miss Sunshine, The Future). I haven't seen Disco, but otherwise think Barcelona is Stillman's best film, and that Damsels and Metropolitan are roughly at the same high level.

All things considered, I don't think Damsels is a bad film at all, but it is my least favourite Stillman film thus far. I find the way he writes the jocks to be rather forced and awkward--he's definitely in more comfortable territory with Violet and her gang. Also, the film doesn't so much end as stop. One gets the feeling that Damsels is more of a playful exercise rather than the fully formed, observational excursions that Metropolitan, Disco and Barcelona were.

Loved the jocks! One of Stillman's greatest feats of humanizing yet!
I find it hard to take his films as "observational" though.

I'd actually rate this my second favorite Stillman. It is indeed quirk personified rather than just quirky. This reaches a level that basically approaches surrealism. I described it afterwards as like PCU for the indie set. That said on a technical level Stillman is extremely lazy as always. I really found myself caring for the Gerwig character though. She's a true original. Like a Heather that actually wants to help people. All in all it kind of made me feel that my instinct that Stillman is a minor filmmaker were true. Metropolitan is a very good little indie but ever since it's just been quaint, enjoyable works.

FerdinandGriffon wrote:Loved the jocks! One of Stillman's greatest feats of humanizing yet!
I find it hard to take his films as "observational" though.

True, his films are not "realistic" in the conventional sense of the word, and his dialogue is highly stylized. But I find that the crux of his best material is focused on watching what people do when they talk, or what they mean to say versus what they're saying on the surface. A large majority of the scenes in his films is mostly about people sitting together talking about various things. The scenes don't always go anywhere plotwise, yet they're a large part of foreshadowing how the characters eventually behave in the long run. On another level, Stillman rarely attempts to force the viewer into liking or disliking certain characters in his films. All of them amuse him, even the cads and bitches, and it rarely feels like he's passing judgement on his characters. As such, his films feel observational. At least to me.

This is just what I hoped it would be: innocent, breezy fun with charm to spare and witty (and Whitty) dialog.

The production designer must have raided the Criterion closets. The posters for Grand Illusion and Lola Montes and the DVD of Stolen Kisses from the Doinel set all make cameo appearances.

I was feeling really depressed yesterday, and then this movie. Exactly what I needed.

I'm surprised at the sorta wishy-washy response from fans to the film. A little distance will reveal whether it holds up to its antecedents as strongly as it seems (on first pass I'd say it's Stillman's best film yet), but at the very least this is by a wide margin Stillman's funniest film. Perhaps the detractors respond to different aspects in Stillman's work than I do, but I thought this captured with good humor and humanism collegiate arrogance while never quite wagging the finger at easy targets-- even the audacious sideplot about Thor's inability to process colors is treated to be as valid as the "superior" characters' crises (and anyone who thinks the joke is in how ridiculous the frat boys are is missing Stillman's point) and there's a shared insanity to the intellectual justifications these characters feed each other to sort through all stimuli.

For as much as a bad audience can detract from a film, I was very thankful for the appreciative crowd I saw this with, which was composed of a motley bunch differing in age, dress, and race-- it did open my eyes a bit to my own bias about the perceived "audience" for Stillman's work, and shows that with the right marketing maybe this would have wider appeal than it's been marketed towards. Also, in light of the generated outrage Girls has received for a lack of diversity, it's interesting to note that Stillman's is extremely multicultural in its casting, and despite the WASPy gals at the center it is actually the most diversely populous film in recent memory.

One side note: Did the MPAA not get all the anal sex jokes, because I must have a deep misunderstanding of their policies if a film with a sideplot like that can get a PG-13...

domino harvey wrote:Did the MPAA not get all the anal sex jokes, because I must have a deep misunderstanding of their policies if a film with a sideplot like that can get a PG-13...

The in-your-endo innuendo was subtle enough that a younger crowd likely wouldn't get it (and maybe the MPAA didn't either). Stillman actually cut some of this material after the Venice premiere in order to secure the PG-13.

domino harvey wrote:One side note: Did the MPAA not get all the anal sex jokes, because I must have a deep misunderstanding of their policies if a film with a sideplot like that can get a PG-13...

It's only strongly implied what Cathars do in bed so maybe it was fine since it wasn't stated outright. Maybe the MPAA overlooked it thinking nobody knows much about the Cathars?