Metacritic reviews

Even though I'm not sure I understand what Stillman was going for minute-to-minute, I was swept away by how original Damsels is, and how funny.

The clash of styles in Damsels in Distress is bewildering and then disarming.

Too many movies come to us as preordained cult objects - this is the real deal.

This is a mannered comedy, more stylized and theatrical, almost surreal at times, and less accommodating to his trademark brand of razor-sharp dialogue.

Highbrow campus-comedy from long-lost Whit Stillman is a flawed but frequently hilarious comeback.

Stillman proves he still knows how to write crackling, articulate dialogue for quirky preppie characters whom he loves laughing at as much as with.

Stillman's comeback comedy Damsels in Distress is wobbly and borderline twee, but it deepens as it goes along and becomes rich.

Given the earnest mayhem that prevails at your local multiplex, there is surely a place for a lightly mocking modernist with a growing distaste for the modern. [9 April 2012, p.84]

While the scenario has all the smirking charm of Stillman's earlier movies, the sobering realities of off-campus life are never even alluded to, and the humor of insularity eventually becomes stifling.

How much you enjoy Damsels will depend on your tolerance for Stillman's particular brand of duct-taped Sperry Topsider whimsy. It's a comedy! It's a musical! It's a trip down memory lane to revisit the blissful confusion of our - or someone's - college years!