The end of Netflix’s dragon movie Damsel makes it worth watching

10.03.2024 - 21:49 / polygon.com

The past couple decades or so have seen fairy-tale subversion afterfairy-tale subversion where a princess doesn’t want fancy dresses and a handsome prince, and instead decides to pick up a sword or split-kick her attackers. In fact, it’s such a common play in media these days that “Pretty Princess Powerhouse” has become a trope of its own.

And Netflix’s Damsel, starring Millie Bobby Brown as a young woman who fights off the dragon that the royal family tries to sacrifice her to, initially seems like it fits that mold.

But director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo smartly subverts those expectations into something more. It isn’t just a story of a headstrong young woman who doesn’t want an archery contest to determine who marries her, so she shoots for her own hand. Or one where a captured princess in a high tower picks up a sword and starts stabbing everyone who’s wronged her. With some stronger core relationships woven in and a plot that slowly puts a spin on the usual conventions, Damsel turns into so much more than a typical fable shake-up, evolving the fairy-tale twist to the next level.

[Ed. note: This piece contains end spoilers forDamsel.]

Even from the get-go, the tone is a little different. The young lady, Elodie, is the eldest daughter of a lord from a harsh, barren land, and she’s pretty level-headed about her upcoming betrothal. She dutifully accepts it as the best option for her own land, since the royal family’s dowry will save her people. So she enters marriage with an open mind, even though the audience can pick up on something sinister going on.

When she does get dropped into the dragon’s lair, the action kicks off. But it isn’t about her fighting the dragon. She’s just trying to survive. It’s also telling that her family doesn’t abandon her. Her father (Ray Winstone), who initially sold her off, comes back to save her, realizing he did wrong. Elodie and her sister have the sweetest, tenderest relationship in the movie. And her stepmother (played by Angela Bassett), who could very easily fall into evil-stepmother tropes, especially as she and Elodie clash a bit on how to present themselves to the royal family, genuinely cares about her well-being. There’s actually a nice, tight family story threaded throughout the tense action sequences, and Elodie’s relationship with her family, including the duty she feels to protect them, fuels all her motives.

Elodie fights for survival, but as she navigates the caverns and avoids the dragon, she soon learns that not only has the royal family lured generations of young women to this fate, they’ve also been lying about why. It isn’t to keep the kingdom safe, but to keep the dragon at bay, because of a time years ago when the royals killed the dragon’s