I have to tell you guys something. 

This movie was pretty bad. It was not very good. I have complex feelings about this movie.

On the one hand, there’s Greta Gerwig. I love Hannah Takes the Stairs and Nights and Weekends. I thought she was the best part of Greenberg and didn’t have enough to do in No Strings Attached. I find her simultaneously lovely and relatable. 

On the other hand, there’s doe-eyed, bobble headed Analeigh Tipton, who makes me cringe the way a wobbly fawn might as it toppled to the ground. A sort of poor thing wince. And there were the other two supporting ladies, who were mostly boring and had to pretend to be stupid and say the same lines over and over.

It was like a student film in many ways. Incredibly flat jokes, jokes that went on too long, or were repeated until they were no longer funny, random handsome foreign dude with nothing to do, costumey costumes, awkward line readings, oddly intense close ups, extremely short throwaway scenes, explanatory title cards. I could go on.

When it was good (it was sometimes good!) it reminded me of a sort of Election meets Drop Dead Gorgeous meets Clueless.But then its caricatures would go from moderately over the top, to unfunny cartoons (dumb frat boy doesn’t even understand colors! yuk yuk yuk!) and I found myself wondering if I should walk out. 

Listen. No one wants to watch Greta Gerwig tap dance with Adam Brody more than I do. That sounds like the perfect film to me, honestly. But most of Damsels in Distress was too offbeat, even for me. I simply didn’t know how to process its strange brand of exaggerated silliness. I just didn’t get it.

Except for the Sambola! That part was great.