The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (PG-13 for brief language and sexuality) ought to have been an excellent movie. Its star-studded British cast-including Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and Dame Maggie Smith-plus its humorous premise that even old age can be outsourced to India should have equaled a hilarious and poignant look at the trials of aging and the joy of living. Unfortunately, it didn't.

What happens when you throw straight man humor, serious coeds, and an idealistic college campus into a blender? You get Damsels in Distress, director Whit Stillman's quirky, self-deprecating comedy that winks at its own goofiness while addressing cultural issues head-on.

The curtain opens at Seven Oaks College where a trio of coeds is examining the newbies at student orientation. Led by Violet (Greta Gerwig), the girls select Lily-a young woman in need of friends-as their newest recruit.

At the corner of attractive and lonely, there is chemistry. If you're lucky, you might stumble there just in time to meet your soul mate, also attractive and lonely. If you happen to be a young Iraqi War veteran and she happens to be a young single mother with an irascible ex-husband, then you're probably Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling in the movie The Lucky One, based on Nicholas Sparks' romance novel of the same name.