13 years we’ve waited for this film. It’s taken a decade and a third, a whole new century, and an IMDB graveyard of uncompleted titles for Whit Stillman to finally add a fourth film to his brief CV. And we couldn’t have loved Damsels In Distress more.

Stillman’s name isn’t one that sparks recognition in many cinema goers’ eyes. He won cautious plaudits for his debut feature Metropolitan – intellectual students pretentiously ponder life, in a series of deb ball after parties. Then was largely ignored for Barcelona – intellectual young diplomats pretentiously ponder life amidst anti-American tension. And then confused critics with The Last Days Of Disco – intellectual young publishers pretentiously ponder life against the backdrop of Studio 54.

On top of that he directed one episode of the David Simon-helmed Homicide: Life On The Street (families of murder victims ponder life).  And that’s it. At a Q&A some years ago, we made the mistake of asking Stillman why he’d not worked more in television. “They never asked me again,” came his solemn reply.

Despite such paucity (or maybe because of it) we’d count Whit Stillman as one of our very favourite directors and never go a year without re-watching his films.

Damsels In Distress had been announced as a departure in style for Stillman. This is only partly true. Thankfully. While his first three films are smartly funny, they’re also profound. Damsels is smartly funny, but it’s also very, very silly, and not remotely profound. He even indulges in occasional slapstick – a first for a director who previously tended towards just three set scenes: siting and talking, walking and talking, and dancing (and talking).

The premise is slight: Three roommates at a university with a disproportionately high suicide rate, select a new student to join their attempts to prevent campus unhappiness through the medium of tap dance, and by altruistically dating sub-normal frat boys. Or to put it another way, imagine if Jane Austen wrote the script for Porkys.

The film centres on Violet, played with beautiful economy by a scene-stealing Greta Gerwig, as leader of an educated but clueless bunch of friends, which include the peculiarly accented Rose (Megalyn Echikunwoke) who seems fixated on “operator-type men” and has the longest build up to a joke I’ve ever seen in a film. The pretty but vacant Heather (Carrie MacLemore), and new addition Lily (Analeigh Tipton) who finds herself in relationships with the suspiciously smooth Charlie (Adam Brody) and Tom (Hugo Becker) who follows an obscure and sexually suspect Catholic cult.

As with all his films, the plot is merely there to support the dialogue which remains as gloriously stilted and absurd as ever.  Stillman seems drawn to characters young enough to think they can change the world, yet too young to have developed self-awareness – speaking in half-stolen or ill-thought-out aphorisms. The girls in Damsels think of relationships only in terms of their social function, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with rejection or heartbreak.

It’s difficult to see just why Damsels In Distress took so long to make. It feels effortless and joyous, particularly the final dance scene (expanding on a similar break from reality in the closing sequence of Last Days of Disco). And since our first thought was that we wanted to watch the film again, immediately, then it’s more than earned its place in the tiny Stillman canon.

And any Whit fans bemoaning the lack of Chris Eigeman (lead actor in his first three films and the Homicide episode) be consoled that there’s a welcome and charming cameo from another regular, Taylor Nichols.

Damsels In Distress is a film to treasure. After all, movies like this don’t come along very often.

www.sonyclassics.com/damselsindistress