Damsel wastes no time letting you know what to expect. “There are many stories of chivalry where the heroic knight saves the damsel in distress,” Millie Bobby Brown’s Elodie narrates at the beginning of Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s new fantasy film. “This is not one of them.”

Indeed, Damsel begins where most fairy tales end, with a dashing prince (Nick Robinson) sweeping Elodie off of her feet. Almost immediately after, however, he tosses her into a chasm, where she plummets into the lair of a bloodthirsty dragon. 

“It subverts what you expect,” Brown told Netflix. “You’re expecting the prince to turn around and save her, and… no. Don’t wait for the prince.” Instead, Elodie will have to piece together the twisted history of the kingdom of Aurea if she’s going to survive. Along the way, she’ll find an inner strength she didn’t know she possessed — and a few friends she might not have expected. 

Read on for your guide to the twisting caverns and sharp turns of Damsel.

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Why does the royal family try to feed Elodie to the dragon?

When Elodie’s father, Lord Bayford (Ray Winstone), agrees to her arranged marriage, it seems like a match made in heaven. The people of their resource-poor northern kingdom need supplies to survive the winter, and the kingdom of Aurea needs a princess. Little does Elodie know that she is just a pawn in an ancient game — sacrificial payback for the long-ago slaughter of a dragon’s three children. As Elodie makes her way through the depths of the cavern, she soon realizes that she is far from the first princess to wind up there. She even spotted her predecessor on an adjacent castle balcony when she first visited Aurea; in the cave, she sees her again, now a brutally scarred corpse.

But, as director Fresnadillo explains it, everything the royal family does to its young “princesses” is, from their perspective, horribly necessary. “It’s beautiful and sinister how this royal family is dutiful to the history of the kingdom and how they do what they do because they are serving a tradition,” Fresnadillo told Netflix. “It’s a horrific thing that they’re doing. But from their perspective, they’re doing it because they are upholding their duty.”

John Wilson/Netflix

So, is Robin Wright the villain of the story?

At the forefront of this effort is Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright), the matriarch of Aurea’s royal family. Each generation of Aurea must sacrifice three princesses, or suffer the dragon’s fiery wrath. In another of Damsel’s fairy tale subversions, the casting of Queen Isabelle is no accident. “Bringing Princess Buttercup into this story and turning her into an evil character — that’s a proper declaration that we’re shaking up the idea of fairy tales in a big way,” Fresnadillo said, referencing Wright’s iconic role in The Princess Bride. “Her character is almost like an executioner. If you think about it, the real dragon in this movie is Queen Isabelle. She’s more of a dragon than the dragon itself.”

For her part, Wright played the role not as a villain, but as the hero of her own private story. “It would be so sad if Princess Buttercup grew up to be this evil queen!” the 8-time Emmy nominee acknowledged. “But this particular queen read very Machiavellian to me — scheming to no end so as to continue the long tradition of sacrifice while furthering her own legacy. She absolutely believes she’s doing the right thing.”

John Wilson/Netflix

How does Elodie escape from the cave?

Elodie’s first goal in the cave is simple: survive. She finds mysterious glowing worms that seem to heal her wounds, and continues to stay one step ahead of the dragon as she pieces together the history of Orea from scratches on the walls. At one point, she seems tantalizingly close to escape, climbing a wall of sharp crystals using only the clothes on her back. 

Throughout the film, Elodie’s only ally is the constrictive dress she was bolted into for her ill-fated wedding. She uses its fabric to protect her feet as she climbs the crystals, creates a makeshift knife that saves her from a fall from the bones inside her corset, and climbs with the false crown she was promised. The Damsel production made 70 different costumes to reflect the various states of Elodie’s dress as it’s slowly peeled back to essentials. But even with this unexpected assistance, Elodie’s climb ends with herself alone on the edge of a cliff face, with the dragon closely guarding.

Salvation soon arrives in the shape of a guilty father. Lord Bayford descends in a desperate attempt to rescue his daughter from the fate he assigned her, and the day seems saved — until the dragon easily defeats him. With his final breaths, Bayford begs his eldest daughter to forgive him, and tells her to ascend the rope and return to her sister and their stepmother.

“I think he tries hard to redeem himself, even if it’s too late,” Winstone said. “I think he made a decision that destroyed him in a way.”

John Wilson/Netflix

No more wicked stepmother

That redemption is partially enabled by his wife, Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett). For Fresnadillo, Lady Bayford’s role was another crucial twist. “Abandoning the stereotype of the cruel stepmother was also another point we wanted to make here,” he said. “You learn that the stepmother, in fact, was the only one trying to stop the craziness about this marriage because she also senses that this place is kind of strange and there’s something off here.” 

Like many elements of Damsel, Lady Bayford is not your typical fairy tale stepmother — and who better to play that complication than beloved two-time Oscar nominee Angela Bassett? “Initially when you meet Lady Bayford you immediately think she’s a wicked stepmother,” Bassett said. “But while she is an outsider in this family, when push comes to shove you realize she’s not wicked. She’s a woman who has risen above her circumstances.”

John Wilson/Netflix

Alex Bailey/Netflix

Is the dragon really evil?

Elodie’s escape from the cave is short-lived; she’s soon racing back to confront the dragon and save her sister Floria (Brooke Carter), who’s been selected as a replacement sacrifice. But rather than take a sword to the dragon’s eye, Elodie makes a choice to break the cycle of revenge once and for all. As the dragon (voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo) bemoans the long-ago loss of her children and promises to spend the rest of her life exacting vengeance, Elodie explains that she’s mistaken on one simple point: the princesses have no royal blood. The dragon has been fooled by the royal family’s ritual — a pair of cut hands clasped before a steep fall. 

It’s the film’s final twist; the dragon who has terrorized Elodie throughout isn’t the villain after all. “The dragon has a reason to become such an evil creature, and you kind of twist the story and you feel some sort of sympathy for the dragon,” Fresnadillo says. 

Aghdashloo proudly took on the burden of playing the film’s most misunderstood character. “In playing the role of the dragon, I was drawn to the unique opportunity to portray a character that, while mythical and often feared, embodies a deep sense of empathy and wisdom,” she said. “The dragon’s journey in the film, from a misunderstood creature to a protector and a voice of moral reasoning, particularly captivated me.”

Having confronted her final obstacle, Elodie returns to the castle of Aurea, and interrupts Prince Henry’s final wedding ceremony. When the dragon arrives on the battlements, the royal families pleas fall on deaf ears. They’re incinerated by the vengeful dragon, with Queen Isabelle’s crown melting down her face in chilling fashion.

Elodie is left to return home with her sister and stepmother (who, in a poignant moment, she now calls simply “mother”). The dragon glides alongside their ship — an unlikely ally in this damsel’s coming of age. 

Damsel is now streaming on Netflix.

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