Damsel

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Not suitable under 13; parental guidance to 14 (violence, scary scenes, themes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Damsel
  • a review of Damsel completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 13 March 2024.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 13 Not suitable due to violence, themes and scary scenes.
Children aged 13–14 Parental guidance recommended due to violence and themes.
Children aged 15 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Damsel
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Fantasy themes and violence, injury detail, and mature themes
Length: 109 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Elodie (Millie Bobbie Brown) and her younger sister Floria (Brooke Carter) live in a cold and impoverished Kingdom where their family must work very hard for the benefit of their people. When a proposal arrives from the Queen of Aurea (Robin Wright), asking for the hand of Elodie in marriage to her son Prince Henry (Nick Robinson), Elodie has her reservations but is persuaded to agree because the union will save their people. Elodie and her sister, along with their father Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone) and stepmother (Angela Bassett), travel to Aurea to meet this prince and his family. The Kingdom is nothing short of spectacular, the Castle more magnificent than anything they could ever have imagined and, much to Elodie’s relief, the Prince appears handsome and kind and they seem to have much in common. It is moments after the wedding that things take a serious turn. Elodie is flung into a deep cavern, as the second of three royal sacrifices given to an ancient dragon who dwells in the caves below and who must have vengeance for the brutal slaying of her own three, newly hatched, daughters by a distant King centuries earlier. Elodie, determined not to become the next sacrifice, must find her way out of the caves before she is killed like so many before her. Using her wits, her courage and a newfound strength she never knew she possessed, Elodie fights her way free and manages to escape. This only enrages the dragon, and Floria is brought as a replacement sacrifice. Upon learning that her sister has been taken by the dragon, Elodie hatches a plan to save her. The plan may cost Elodie her life, or it may just provide the means to ensure that the dragon never slays an innocent girl again and that the true villains of the tale are finally brought to justice.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Betrayal; Revenge; Sacrifice; A child separated from family; The death of a parent; Killing in an attempt to gain justice for something that can never be rectified.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • A story is told of a dragon filled with blood lust, a dragon who killed villagers, who attacked and killed the men who went to fight her, and how a kingdom has had to give up three princesses every generation so that the people would stay safe.
  • The Queen of Aurea slices Elodie’s palm with a knife. She does the same with her son’s palm and has them hold hands.
  • Prince Henry throws Elodie off a high bridge. She is thrown down a deep chasm where she lands on hard ground, battered and bruised, her face badly scratched by trees and brambles, and her head bleeding.
  • Elodie tries to put out a bird that has been set on fire. Suddenly, hundreds of birds fill the cave, all of whom have been set on fire. They fly, burning to death, before landing all around Elodie as smouldering and glowing carcasses.
  • Elodie repeatedly runs from the dragon as it tries to burn her alive with fire. Her leg is badly burnt by flames and she is in lots of pain as she narrowly escapes into a crevice.
  • Elodie discovers the burned body of the princess who was sacrificed the day before she was thrown into the cave.
  • Elodie falls through a stone passageway and gets stuck, face down. She nearly falls off a cliff ledge and has to stab her way back up a cliff face with a knife.
  • As Elodie pauses to drink water dripping from stalactites, the dragon attempts to burn her again. It tells her that: “The story always ends the same”. She finds herself in a small, tucked away space filled with old dresses and the names of the countless princesses killed before her.
  • In a dream, Elodie sees all the previously trapped princesses as they nurse their wounds and burns, keep a terrified watch for the dragon, and shiver in fear or quietly cry.
  • Elodie nearly falls into the waiting mouth of the dragon when she loses her grip while climbing a wall of crystals.
  • Elodie comes across the charred remains of three baby dragons, still partially in their shells.
  • There is a flashback to the three baby dragons being stabbed to death by a king, as well as to when the king’s soldiers were burned to death by the dragon.
  • The severed leg of a knight is shown.
  • The dragon grabs a man from behind and smashes him into a rock pillar, where he bashes his head on the ground and dies.
  • The dragon grabs another man and crushes him with her claw.
  • The dragon grabs Elodie’s father with her tail, holds him upside down and tries to get him to lure Elodie out.
  • The dragon stabs Elodie’s father through the chest with her talons.
  • The dragon crushes a man’s neck and his body seems to explode under the pressure.
  • The dragon tries to burn the rope that Elodie is climbing up to escape, and it nearly succeeds in burning her.
  • Elodie manages to escape and hide, but the horse she was riding is burned alive while it runs away.
  • Fire rains around the mountain and explodes throughout the sky to show the dragon’s fury to the kingdom.
  • The Queen of Aurea orders guards to slice Elodie’s stepmother through the stomach and to take Floria in Elodie’s place.
  • The Queen slices Floria’s hand and then her own. Her guards then throw Floria into the same chasm that Elodie was flung down.
  • Elodie is burned by the dragon and then crushed by its claw as it stabs her in the chest.
  • Elodie stabs a knife into one of the dragon’s eyes and fluid sprays out.
  • Elodie stabs the dragon through the wrist with her sword as it holds her in its claws.
  • Through Elodie’s cleverness, the dragon burns herself with her own fire.
  • The dragon burns the royal family alive and then destroys their castle.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • There is the menacing shadow of a large dragon, screeching in the back of a cave. She looms up, terrifying, and burns soldiers alive as they scream. A king then stabs his sword into the ground and it looks as if the dragon is about to kill him too but it turns out the King will have a far worse fate. The voice of the dragon, throughout the film, sounds extremely sinister and disturbing.
  • When Elodie and her family travel to Aurea they pass through a foggy channel filled with gigantic, creepy statues of dragons. Elodie and her family are clearly unnerved, until they pass through and the fog clears. The evil-looking images of the dragons looming out of the fog could be frightening to some viewers.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • There is a jump-scare as Elodie finally reaches the top of the crystal wall and finds a crevice leading to the outside world. She can see people down below but she is too far up for them to hear her and there is no way down. As she stands on the rocky outcrop, looking down, suddenly the dragon looms up from nowhere and tries to eat her. It is about to burn her alive, while she huddles beside the charred remains of another princess, when it hears people calling Elodie’s name and disappears to investigate.
  • Some children may be upset by the scene in which Elodie’s father comes to rescue her in the cave. He is stabbed through the chest by the dragon’s claws and lays dying in a pool of blood when Elodie is finally able to go to him. She had watched the dragon torture her father without being able to do anything and she was with him as he died.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Elodie and the prince kiss.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

  • None noted.

In a nutshell

Damsel is an action-packed, fantasy adventure from Netflix, featuring a diverse cast with strong female role models and the excellent usage of CGI. The film contains lots of violence and frequent injury detail. It is best suited to teen and older audiences.

The main messages from this movie are that it is your actions that define who you are; that nobility is not determined by blood-line or marriage but by the courage and quality of one’s character; and that no matter how terrified you are, or how powerless you might feel, you are not alone and you must never, ever, give up.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Courage
  • Honesty
  • Responsibility
  • Resourcefulness
  • Determination.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Betraying those you love.
  • Trying to take revenge for something that is long since passed and unable to be changed.
  • Lying to others for your own personal gain.
  • Spreading false tales, rumours and fear.