Clever auteur Whit Stillman returns with new film Damsels in Distress Those of us depressed by the scarcity of sophisticated comedy in cinema are rejoicing at the return of writer-director Whit Stillman, whose new film Damsels in Distress, released on April 27, is his first in 14 years. He's known for his deadpan comedies of manners among America's privileged classes; he has a wit as dry as a perfect martini. Damsels recounts the adventures of four somewhat proper female students at an east coast college, determined to improve its macho, beer-swilling, "party school" image. It has a largely unknown cast, the exception being Greta Gerwig (Greenberg). Urbane and engaging in person, Harvard graduate Stillman's reputation rests on just three films: the exquisite Metropolitan (1990), Barcelona (1994) and The Last Days of Disco (1998). He was once talked of as a Woody Allen for a new generation but, perhaps because he has never matched Allen's prolific output, the comparison never quite took hold. Still, a new Damsels trailer suggests Stillman is in effervescent form.