Directed by: Emerald Fennell
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Clancy Brown, Molly Shannon, Jennifer Coolidge, Alison Brie, Adam Brody, Connie Britton, Chris Lowell, Alfred Molina
Promising Young Woman deserves credit for allowing itself to explore dark, murky waters of themes brought to light by #MeToo and following it to its unbending conclusion. This is not a story meant for a happy ending, just one where justice is served at an extreme price. The protagonist, former med student Cassie (Mulligan) is far too damaged by the events of the past to ever be made whole again. We know there was trauma in the past and we find out what happened and why. For Cassie there is no catharsis as she attempts to avenge not just the rape of her lifelong best friend in medical school, but to punish the enablers and the system which let the perpetrators off the hook.
Cassie first appears as an intoxicated woman in a bar who can barely sit up. This makes her easy prey for guys to pick her up and take her to their homes under the guise of being helpful and friendly. The guys make their move and lo and behold Cassie is no longer drunk, but alert and ready to call out the creeps on their desire to take advantage of a stoned woman. She does this for kicks. Now working at a coffee shop and living with her parents, while having no desire to change either situation, she runs into Ryan (Burnham) a former med school classmate who asks her out. She spits in his coffee, but he returns the next day to ask her out again. They awkwardly begin to date.
Meanwhile, Cassie plots to confront those who turned a blind eye to the rape of her friend Nina by a med student who went on to become a well-to-do doctor. This includes the medical school dean (Britton) who doesn't recall the incident or that Cassie reported to her eight years ago. When the dean recalls what happened, she claims she "didn't want to ruin the young man's life over he said/she said reports," Even if you don't buy exactly how Cassie is able to pull off the prank involving the dean's daughter, it still is satisfying to see the dean squirm.
Cassie's plots escalate dangerously the closer she gets to the culprit (Lowell). For a moment, after a heartfelt conversation with Nina's mother (Shannon), Cassie abandons her plans and goes forward with her relationship with Ryan. Does she live happily ever after? You kind of, sort of know she won't. It just isn't in the cards for Cassie, who has made it her life's mission to make those who made her and Nina suffer as unhappy as she is.
Carey Mulligan has turned in some exceptional performances throughout her career. Along with her Oscar-nominated work in An Education (2009), Promising Young Woman is the best work of her career. Cassie is not an easy character to pin down, and Mulligan daringly allows us to see her wounds and how they've shaped her. Promising Young Woman is not simply a Mulligan tour-de-force. It is a film as angry as its lead at the "boys will be boys" attitude which still exists in some circles when it comes to sexual assault and rape. The men throw every tired, hackneyed excuse in the book at Cassie to justify their actions. We roll our eyes. I suppose they keep using these trite phrases because others keep believing them.
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