Damsel (2018)

Damsel is a western that rides in wearing the costume of a romantic frontier adventure and then, with a sly grin, reveals itself as something sharper, funnier, and more modern than you expect. The Zellner brothers frame the Oregon wilderness with storybook beauty while letting oddball humor and melancholy seep into every awkward pause, every misguided gesture, every self-mythologizing speech—especially from Robert Pattinson, who’s fearless as a well-meaning dreamer playing cowboy in his own head. When Mia Wasikowska arrives, the film’s energy snaps into bracing focus, turning the genre inside out with a perspective that feels both cathartic and darkly comic. It’s not for everyone—its deadpan pacing, sudden violence, and deliberately off-kilter tone can be divisive—but if you like revisionist westerns that look gorgeous and puncture old myths with bite and heart, this one’s absolutely worth the trip.

Damsel is trying to be a sly, offbeat anti-Western that pokes holes in the “hero rescues the girl” fantasy, using deadpan humor and a deliberate perspective shift to make its point. The problem is it often feels like a clever short stretched into a feature: the pacing drifts, the story stays thin, and the awkwardness can read less like purposeful satire and more like the movie stalling. If you want a traditional Western, a tight plot, or jokes that land loudly, this will likely test your patience. Still, Pattinson commits hard to the clueless romantic, Wasikowska brings bite when the film finally lets her, and the oddball tone will work for viewers who enjoy slow, quirky, mildly abrasive indie comedies with a feminist sting.