A medieval phrase with a extremely particular (however usually misused) that means, “damsel” describes a younger, single lady-in-waiting. It’s additionally the broad title given many a helpless heroine in Hollywood motion pictures — the proverbial “damsel in misery,” trussed to the prepare tracks or in any other case ready to be saved. Elodie is neither of these in Netflix’s pleasantly disruptive fantasy story, which locations “Enola Holmes” star Millie Bobby Brown squarely in command of her destiny.

A revisionist fairy story wherein Elodie is rapidly married off and served up as dragon chow to fulfill a generations-old curse, “Damsel” treats Elodie as an motion hero for our much less gender-rigid instances. The loud-and-clear message, achieved by eliminating “misery” from the title (although it’s nonetheless a necessary a part of the components): Passive damsels be damned! Right here’s a lady who can fend for herself!

The eldest daughter of 1 Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone), kindly patriarch of a cash-strapped land, Elodie first seems along with her hair and make-up neatly in place. She’s able to pose for a royal portrait, if she cared about such issues (she’s extra inclined to bow looking and horseback using). By the top of the story, she’s charred and scarred, her gown soiled and torn to shreds, having endured a “Die Exhausting”-level gantlet of risks. (Technically, Elodie has survived a lot worse, as robust man Bruce Willis didn’t should deal with a fire-breathing reptile. Like John Rambo, she will sew her personal wounds.)

Elodie isn’t a lot a damsel as she is a maiden, and he or she’s hardly the primary who can get by with out being rescued by a person. Moderately, she’s the newest — and arguably probably the most resourceful — in a cycle that started with Disney’s “Frozen” just a few years again. Now, after Hulu’s “The Princess” and Netflix’s personal “Nimona,” helmer Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s “Damsel” demonstrates how a style that younger individuals have loved for a century needn’t be completely centered on boys.

In Dan Mazeau’s script, even the antagonists are girls: Robin Wright, whose dastardly Queen Isabelle subverts the dear Buttercup she performed in “The Princess Bride,” and Shohreh Aghdashloo, whose smoky voice appears a perfect match for the fire-breathing dragon. There’s one other apparent benefit to giving this fearsome CG creature the facility of speech. Doing so explains how the dragon established the pact with a long-ago king (Matt Slack) that has known as for therefore many royal sacrifices. But it surely additionally implies that intelligent Elodie can cause with the beast. One doesn’t essentially want brute power to slay — or sway — a dragon.

In its idyllic opening stretch, the film serves up the same old form of romantic want achievement. Certain, that is an organized marriage, however the prince (Nick Robinson) is charming sufficient, and the marriage gown appears to be like simply dreamy. Nonetheless, one thing is clearly off within the kingdom of Aurea, and simply earlier than the marriage, Elodie’s stepmother (Angela Bassett) begins to fret … with good cause. The evening of the ceremony, Elodie is carried up the mountain behind the fortress and tossed down a big darkish chasm.

On the backside, she finds deserted sneakers and damaged tiaras — proof of her precise destiny. What number of brides have been supplied to the dragon via the ages? In one of many film’s efficient scenes, Elodie finds a spot the dragon can’t attain, and there she discovers a wall the place a dozen or so earlier princesses wrote their names. In addition they left a map, sharing what they’ve discovered with future victims. It’s an impressed present of solidarity on this umpteenth replace on the Bluebeard folktale, which Fresnadillo makes literal by having the digicam pan across the cave to disclose the wives who got here earlier than.

So many Netflix choices look barely polished sufficient for the small display. However on occasion, one arrives with an all-star solid, lavish manufacturing values and the form of artistic oversight (by veteran producers who got here up via the studio system) dedicated to creating motion pictures, versus “content material.” “Damsel” belongs to that old school custom, even when its message feels completely modern. For his half, Fresnadillo immerses audiences in Elodie’s predicament via a steadiness of sensible and digital results, together with nice jets of fireside that singe at her heels, however by no means fairly catch up.

What issues most is whether or not we imagine Brown within the function, and the “Stranger Issues” star has no hassle embodying the form of quick-thinking unbiased thoughts it takes to outlive such an journey. The film doesn’t reveal an excessive amount of of her character earlier than that first twist, although Elodie is proven drawing mazes in her spare time — a talent that turns out to be useful when attempting to navigate these “Goonies”-like caverns. Her solely instruments are a brass dagger stitched into her bodice and a filigreed orb that serves as a lamp. If MacGyver might make do with that, so can she.

In traditional tales, damsels spend their time studying to be women. Elodie bypasses all of that, utilizing her intelligence to uncover the key rationalization of those horrific sacrifices, which may very well be learn as centuries of what-they-don’t-tell-you patriarchal management. Deliciously improper at instances, “Damsel” adheres to codes that may really feel a bit calculated, much less natural than crafted in response to a newly progressive company agenda (the indicators are there in any respect ranges, from inclusive casting to often self-righteous dialogue). However function fashions like Elodie stay all too uncommon, and if the film adjustments the way in which younger girls say the phrase “damsel” going ahead — now not daintily, however with a growl — then it’s moved the needle.