DAMSELS IN DISTRESS

 

If Jane Austen were a man and lived in the 20th century she would be Whit Stillman whose last film was indeed an adaptation of Austen's novella "Lady Susan" and like Austin he isn't prolific. In fact, he's only made five features in the last thirty years and each is an event though his smartly funny and hugely intelligent comedies have never been box-office giants; maybe he's the only director whose entire filmography consists of five cult movies.

"Damsels in Distress", which he made in 2011, is set in an American college where Emma-esque heroine Violet, (a terrific Greta Gerwig), and her band of female followers spend their every waking moment helping (i.e. messing up), the lives of their fellow students and run, God help us, the Suicide Prevention Centre where their main source of therapy is tap-dancing.

While we may be in an American college we are definitely in Austen territory, (any of Stillman's earlier films are much closer to Austen way of thinking than Amy Heckerling's 'Emma' adaptation "Clueless"), and where the battle of the sexes never amounts to more than a ticklish skirmish. This, like everything Stillman's done, is a gem.