Starring: Greta Gerwig, Lio Tipton, Adam Brody, Megalyn Echikunwoke

Violet (Greta Gerwig) fancies herself an important force at her liberal arts school. With a small but devoted friend group in tow, she seeks to improve the lives of her peers, offering up donuts, if not useful advice, at a suicide prevention center, and making projects out of potential love interests, boys she considers her inferiors. Though on its surface it seems like the behavior of a narcissist, Violet is as earnest as she is naive, seriously reflecting on criticisms offered to her by transfer student Lily (Lio Tipton).

Released over a decade after his previous feature (The Last Days of Disco), Whit Stillman retains his unique brand of humor and wit in Damsels in Distress, drawing the kinds of would-be popular girls as altruistic eccentrics.