Promising Young Woman

 

IMDB: 7.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes: 91%(critics), 87%(audience)

Director: Emerald Fennell

Writers: Emerald Fennell

Stars: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Laverne Cox

Release Date: 25 December 2020

Warning: All of the spoilers ahead.

Can I just say how incredible it is that this is a debut feature from Emerald Fennell? I think age is a benefit in that fact, because it's so obvious how completely clear of a vision she had in her head for this film, and she executed that vision so brilliantly. 

This is definitely my favourite film of 2020, and there is so much to love about it. First of all, it is definitely the best "Me Too" film to come out of the movement so far, there have been a lot of interesting projects out recently that tackle consent and all kinds of other questions around the reckoning of 2017, such as The Assistant, and the absolutely brilliant show, I May Destroy You, but I think that unlike the other movies, this was able to have a particularly satisfying conclusion. Other people might completely disagree with that statement, but what I mean is, even outside of the actual ending, the entire journey is cathartic on so many different levels. 

Let's start at the beginning, when I first saw the trailer for this movie, I had extremely high hopes, Britney Spears' song Toxic? Carey Mulligan? The bubblegum pop aesthetic? Bo Burnham? I was in. They left it quite ambiguous, was Cassie(Carey Mulligan) murdering these men that she was tricking into bringing her home? I honestly would have been completely down for that, and I guess we don't REALLY know either way since we never see any of the men again after she confronts them, and with the different colour pen marks, Emerald Fennell has said that she has left that ambiguous and won't publicly say her opinion on it because she wants to leave it up to the viewers, which I think is fine. 

Anyone who had seen the trailer knew going in that Cassie(Mulligan) isn't really drunk and she's setting these men up, but personally that doesn't take away at all from the thrill of her revealing her soberness to her first victim, Jerry(Adam Brody). That first "what are you doing?" is so freakin great, that only an actress as fantastic as Carey Mulligan could pull off. I'm glad that we got to see it in a couple of different situations, not just the one, it felt like a perfect amount. 

Although this feels like a satisfying experience to watch, all of the confrontations feel so perfect, but we quickly realize that Cassie is not "thriving" in life. Whatever happened in her past is deeply effecting her in completely negative ways, despite being in Medical school a decade ago, she's now working in a coffee shop(working for Lavern Cox), still living with her parents(Clancy Brown & Jennifer Coolidge), to their displeasure, and is just obviously living a completely destructive life.

And then Ryan(Bo Burnham) shows up. Let me just say that I have had a massive crush on Bo Burnham since 2008, when I first saw his Youtube videos, and this movie only proved to me, and I'm sure the rest of the world, that he is obviously leading man material. Ryan(Burnham) woos Cassie, and slowly convinces her to let him in. Now, unfortunately, I saw through one of the twists fairly early on. I'm not sure if we find out that Ryan is friends with Al(Chris Lowell), or if Al AND his friends participated in the attack on her friend Nina, first, but as soon as we had both pieces of information, I knew, deep in my soul, that Ryan was there during the attack. I have to say though, even knowing(or at least assuming) that, I was totally invested in their love story. They were so so freakin' sweet, and it was so nice to see her having joy after being full of so much darkness.

She starts expanding her revenge spree, more specifically going after the people directly involved in the attack on Nina, which is when the satisfaction really kicks in, and also when we really start questioning whether Cassie has completely lost her mind or not. She meets up with an old friend, Madison(Alison Brie) where Cassie gets her drunk and starts asking questions about what happened with Nina, and why Madison didn't help her. It's clear that Madison hasn't grown at all and still has the same opinions, so Cassie sets her up. 

Then there is Cassie's confrontation with Dean Walker(Connie Britton) when we really start to be concerned that Cassie has really crossed some lines when she seemingly kidnaps the Dean's daughter, while she goes to confront the Dean about how she handled Nina's case, while STILL supporting Al Monroe(Lowell). We finally found out, after lying to the Dean about her daughter's whereabouts, that Cassie is not as psychotic as we might fear she is, and she is safely waiting in a diner for her favourite band to show up. 

I think my favourite interaction Cassie has is with Al's lawyer(Alfred Molina) who has been dealing with the guilt of defending bad people, and waiting for someone to come and punish him. To Cassie's shock, the lawyer remembers Nina, and her case exactly. He begs for her forgiveness, and when Cassie gets back to her car we see that she nearly did finally cross the line when we see that she had hired a fairly large man to, we assume, beat up the lawyer if it had gone the other way.

Cassie is clearly falling apart, and soon things with Ryan do as well, causing her to slowly realize that holding onto the past doesn't help anyone, and isn't going to bring back her friend, and that it's time to start taking steps to move forward. She gets rid of her diary, deletes her social media stalking profile, and decided to move on with her life, apologizing to Ryan, and finally giving us one of my favourite scenes of the movie... a convenience store musical number to Paris Hilton's Stars Are Blind. 

We finally see Cassie coming into her own, her parents are proud, her relationship with Ryan is peaking, but once again, I knew there was no way thats how this movie was going to end, this isn't a romance movie, this is a revenge film. So, Madison(Brie) reappears, distraught, but thanks to Cassie's sick trick, she's had some time to think about the past and finds a phone with a video of Nina's attack, and finally, the bomb drops, we hear Ryan's voice, and between her heartbreak and grief, she goes completely off the rails. She confronts Ryan and gives him a chance to do the right thing, which he does not, and he tells her where Al's bachelor party is going to be that weekend. 

Immediately when the door opens and we see Al's friends(including Max Greenfield) I had the feeling in the pit of my stomach that she was a complete idiot and that this was obviously not safe. It's one thing to confront one man at a time in her previous escapades, but its a totally different story walking into a room full of full grown men, some of which you know are pieces of shit who helped Al get away with an assault in the first place. They quell your fears for a while there, she drugs all of the other guys at the party and is left alone in a room with Al, handcuffs him to the bed, and starts revealing the truth about who she is and what she's doing there. And then, we get the real twist. Somehow, Al gets the advantage and gets one of his hands free, and he smothers and kills Cassie. I haven't heard Emerald Fennell talking about this scene too much since its a spoiler, but I find it to be a fascinating commentary on the power imbalance between men and women, that even with one of his hands handcuffed to the bed, he still has the power in the situation and is able to kill her with one hand literally tied behind his back. 

At this point I was thinking "how is Cassie this dumb, she was obviously walking into a very dangerous situation, I do not want these assholes to win." But worry not, Emerald Fennell didn't let us down. While we have to say goodbye to our heroine, and we worry that Al's wedding is going to right into a "happily ever after" ending, Cassie had other plans, even in death. We see that she made a contingency plan, sending the video and her location to the Lawyer(Molina), and while due to things like "statute of limitations", nothing legally would be able to happen with the tape of the attack, however, I like to think that there is enough to implicate Ryan and perhaps lose him his job at a children's hospital. Plus, Al and Joe must be going down for murder at this point.

I've heard that this is a very controversial ending but I personally thought it was basically perfect. It was unrealistic to think that a single woman could be in all of these situations and it all end fine and safely for her, I think that would have gone against the entire theme of this story. 

As I said in the beginning, this is my favourite movie of 2020, I think it is a Tarantino level revenge flick and I think Emerald Fennell especially deserves all of the awards for writing and directing, obviously that did not happen at the Golden Globes last night, but I'm still holding out hope for the Oscars. I give this movie a 10/10, I loved every second of it, and every decision made by the filmmakers.