Damsels in Distress, and Whit Stillman Double Bill

"He's lying. I find that very attractive"

Whit Stillman's latest film plays all this week. The wonderful Greta Gerwig is Violet, a do-gooding Samaritan with a martyr complex, who, along with her friends Rose, Lily and Heather bravely fights a spate of suicides on her college campus by offering doughnuts, tap dancing and hand wrapped soap packages to the heartbroken and depressed.

When Violet's attempt to help one of her wards backfires - shaking her belief in the sisterhood, and romantic love - a period of self reflection ensues which threatens the dynamics of the tightknit quartet.

I am Dora loves Stillman’s portrayal of young women’s bewilderment at the behaviour of their male counterparts, and the different neuroses that starting, ending or even contemplating a romantic relationship can reveal. If you love it as much as we did, check out the Stillman double bill: Last Days of Disco, and Metropolitan, at the end of the week.

Jemma Desai is guest blogger on our film programme this week, her publication, I am Dora, which launches with a screening on 31 May, explores female identity in film, and psychoanalysis.

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