Damsel

2018 offbeat Western

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A lovestruck cowboy and a hired preacher take a pony named Butterscotch to find the love of that cowboy's life and marry her.

Damsel--an offbeat Western by the Zellner brothers, the guys who did Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter--has an unpredictability that gives it just enough juice. My favorite comedies are ones where you have to stop and wonder if the whole thing is even supposed to be funny. This, with a ridiculous pony named Butterscotch and a stubby-armed piano player and dialogue where rough Wild West types compare Adam's apples and auxiliary characters like that laughing and wheezing man in a barrel (credited as "Barrel of Laughs," naturally) and a shot of a kitty in a spittoon and references to skull duggery and skull thuggery and skull buggery, is almost more odd than it is funny. The Wild West town is the quirkiest town this side of wherever Clint Eastwood ends up in High Plains Drifter. At least I remember that town being quirky.

The Zellners are patient storytellers, and that requires their audience to be a little patient as well. There are plenty of fun moments and bits of inanity to keep you going while you wait for the story or the characters to develop. The characters are fun, too. Robert Pattinson continues his run of picking interesting projects and plays a character here who always keeps you guessing. Mia Wasikowska plays the titular damsel who may or may not be in distress. David Zellner, one of the Zellners, plays the preacher, one of the most pitiful characters I've seen in a long time. Western archetypes are flipped on their heads and then flipped on their heads again, adding to that unpredictability.

The score was from some group called The Octopus Project, and I liked it although that might just be because I'm a sucker for anything involving the saw as an instrument. One musical highlight is a lovely ballad Pattinson shares about his "honeybun," a tender moment that, of course, is followed by a scene where the character is masturbating by a river while looking at a picture of said honeybun in a locket.

I'm keeping an eye on these Zellners!