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‘Damsels In Distress’

Whit Stillman is best known for his loose trilogy of films that revolve around cataloguing the ennui of twentysomething WASPy blue bloods — Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994), and The Last Days of Disco (1998) — but his 2011 film Damsels In Distress has recently been gaining some heat on Film Twitter in the wake of the blockbuster success of Barbie. Why? Well, for starters, because the movie stars Greta Gerwig, a gifted actress whose talents and charms are on full display here in Stillman’s comedy of manners, which is set at the fictional Seven Oaks college. Gerwig and her compatriots take a transfer student (Lio Tipton) they meet at orientation under their wing, and attempt to school her on the ways to succeed in school, and just as importantly, in romance. Stillman’s dryly funny wordplay and East Coast sensibilities will remind you very much of the work of Noah Baumbach, Gerwig’s husband IRL (and co-screenwriter of Barbie).