A trio of girls set out to change the male-dominated environment of the Seven Oaks college campus, and to rescue their fellow students from depression, grunge and low standards of every kind.
Whit Stillman's Damsels in Distress is a wonderfully off-beat comedy about a student, Violet (Greta Gerwig), who seeks to transform life at her college. With friends Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) & Heather (Carrie MacLemore) she takes under wing seemingly nice transfer student Lily (Analeigh Tipton) who soon attracts the attentions of both "playboy-operator" Charlie (Adam Brody) & dreamboat grad student Xavier (Hugo Becker) - but it's Violet who will end up crushed.
The movie revolves around a group of style-obsessed college girls who take in a new student (Gerwig) and teach her their misguided ways of helping people at their grungy university, sort of “Mean Girls” filtered through the lens of the filmmaker behind such urbane indie dramas as “Barcelona,” “Metropolitan” and “Disco.” The crux of the story is focused on the relationship between Gerwig’s character and a suitor (Brody), whom the girls are taken with but have doubts over his intentions.