Movie Review: Promising Young Woman
Carey Mulligan in “Promising Young Woman” Source: Sundance
Every guy is a good guy—until they aren’t. What Promising Young Woman addresses in blistering pastels is a nightmare without fictional monsters. Our heroine is just a girl fueled by anger in the #MeToo era, brazenly igniting a multifaceted conversation about right and wrong. By morning, as our heroine declares, “it’s a he said, she said situation.”
We join Cassandra (Carey Mulligan) in the late stages of her journey. A group of men are dancing on the stage of a middling bar, each in their celebratory slow-motion element and, with the right music, it may seem as though they’re masters of the universe. In khaki pants and loosened ties, they’re high fiving each other and gyrating like idiots. They are a fumbling yet prime example of “bro” culture. Perspective is everything, right? When the obligatory “Jerry” gets a pretty “asking for it” blonde on his radar, it’s his time to shine. Offering her a ride home, naturally results with Cassie in his bed telling her she’s safe. It’s a term he uses subjectively while removing her panties. And it’s easy because this girl is intoxicated beyond comprehension. Until his mouth is on her...and she isn’t.
This first-time feature directed by Killing Eve frontrunner Emerald Fennell, is an atypical revenge thriller. Cassie is a heroine unlike anything audiences have seen before, bringing the story close to campy territory. But why? It shouldn’t be so hard to conceptualize a revenge tale on the subject of sexual assault, and Fennell inserts many common tropes used against women to Cassie’s advantage. Until recently, movies can feature a hundred completely nude women surrounding an fully clothed entrepreneur-type scoundrel and somehow the audience finds a way to worship him (Looking at you, Wolf of Wallstreet). In short, it’s easier to watch movies in which women are treated like shit than watch a movie about men getting called out for their despicable behavior.
Casting the lead proves genius, as Mulligan’s wry, gum-popping smile masterfully manipulates the men around her into predictably shallow wimps. Moreover, she has the imperative ability to catapult the viewer from seeing Cassie as a fictional character and into a real person. It’s a skill that could have been played dangerously into satirical absurdity. Another actress would be hard pressed to bring such a unique sense of dread and control to a role requiring her dress like a stripper in a rainbow wig. In fact, Mulligan plays a different character from one scene to the next: a businesswoman, a minidress/silver-lipped club kid, a student, an underage teen in pigtails. And somehow, she manages all of this without being ironic. This is because each of these characters are representations of real women. For every new persona Cassie takes on, all the men are exactly the same—uninteresting, cardboard cutouts of a culture that won’t stop congratulating their mediocrity.
To dissect a mystery like this we have to descend into vulnerability. At a glance, Cassie could be easy to read. She lives with her parents in a house the size of a castle, ornamented with dated pink carpets, royal furniture and plastic covered tables (a decorating scheme addressed heavily by the expression on an exquisite Allison Brie’s face later on). Her parents struggle to understand why their daughter dropped out of med school to become a dedicated loner working at a coffee shop. It’s in that same coffee shop, however, that she is surprised by an old college friend, Ryan (Bo Burnham), who unwittingly adds fresh salt to an old would and inevitably changing the direction of Cassie’s quiet rampage.
Fennell packs so much tension into this film, it’s hard to believe the movie isn’t a visual bloodbath. And it’s better that way because the plot is grounded in reality. This story is a perspective on rape that doesn’t dwell on the mechanics of law and order. In America, people don’t legally have to be held accountable for their wrongdoing. That includes universities who dismiss violence against women, then claiming to have one of the safest campuses in the country.
In a scene with her former college dean, Cassie breaches the expectation of their meeting to inquire about a former student accused of rape. Dean Walker (Connie Britton) causally brings into question how many drinks his victim had that night and how, regarding the victim, it’s ok to make bad choices and feel guilty about them afterward. But Cassie knows the Dean would say that and plays it to her strengths. The volatile tit for tat erupts into how the narrative could be viewed differently it the victim were Dean Walker’s own daughter.
We could question Cassie’s logic, but why would we want to? What we’re experiencing is the psychological aftermath of rape and a journey toward recovery at all costs, even if there’s no hope. Cassie breathes destruction with the face of an angel, taking out an archive of formerly complicit characters along the way. The old adage “show don’t tell” is explicit here, confronting head-on the issues of personal growth, complicity and forgiveness, but most of all the unforgivable. To that point, you may find the director’s demonstrations on violence and abnormal psychology painful to watch. I encourage you to do so.
In her welcome brand of highly conceptual storytelling, Fennell flips similar narratives without making slits of dark humor feel inopportune. This film begs viewers to ask, what are you more uncomfortable with in society: getting away with rape and blaming the victim, or the victim taking matters into her own hands when no one else will. Consider Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) starring Diane Keaton, an adaptation famous for its depiction violence against a sexually active woman who frequents late-night bars. Promising Young Woman turns is the kind of contemporary masterpiece that drives a high-stakes plot without the use of guns or car chases. Yet, the buildup to the climax feels akin to being a passenger of a car about to drive full force into a brick wall.
For all the good guys out there, we already know what your worst nightmare is. When was the last time you asked yourself the same thing for a woman? Maybe you’re afraid to.