Promising Young Woman (2020): Is Revenge Sweet?

Promising Young Woman is a stylish female revenge story, starring Carey Mulligan as an attractive young woman named Cassandra (“Cassie”).  Cassie dropped out of medical school several years ago (for reasons best explained by the film itself) and now lives as a loner with her parents. working at a coffee shop by day. At night, she goes to bars and dance clubs, where she feigns drunken vulnerability, waiting for the inevitable knight in shining armor to come and help her out – as in, take her home and try to take advantage of her for sex. She then drops the helpless act and confronts and humiliates the bastard. At least some of the time, blood is involved. We soon discover she has been engaged in this routine for quite some time, and she is quite good at it. As we get to know Cassie a little, we realize that she is intriguingly serious, highly intelligent and … damaged. 

The film is engaging and provocative. Also, dramatic, satirical, psychological, comic, erratic, intelligent and surprising. I almost added sexy to the description, but while sex plays an important role in the story, there is nothing that might be described as arousing or erotic here. Promising Young Woman is concerned with exploitation and depraved behavior, and its subject matter is, at its core, troubling; yet the film itself is neither salacious nor exploitive. 

The success of the picture rests largely on the acting talent and commitment of Mulligan  [An Education
(2009), Never Let Me Go (2010), Drive (2011), Mudbound (2017), who is in most every scene in the film; and on the creative vision of Emerald Fennel, who wrote the screenplay and directed.  Fennel is also an actress, having appeared in The Danish Girl (2015) and 27 episodes of Call the Midwife, as well as  later seasons of The Crown (as Camilla Parker Bowles). Fennel’s previous writing credits include six episodes of the award-winning series Killing Eve. 

Still, Promising Young Woman is her first feature film screenplay and her first outing as a feature film director, but her relative inexperience hardly shows. At 35, she’s just getting started, it seems.  Her direction is assured, producing - and aided by - fine performances by Mulligan and her supporting cast.  The script is smart, full of surprises and alternately amusing and thrilling. The narrative moves along briskly, for the most part. and keeps us entertained … and guessing.  The guessing and plot turns continue right on through the dramatic and rather shocking ending.  So you need to keep your seatbelt on.   

This being a first film, there are a few miscues, such as a mid-film sequence illustrating the early stages of Cassie’s new romance that’s both rom-com trite and unnecessarily repetitive. But that’s a pretty minor flaw.  

More significantly, the primary theme of the film – that society as a whole and men in particular are essentially misogynistic, objectifying young women and perpetrating, or at the least tolerating, sexual predation and violence – is overplayed, depicted with little to no nuance. For me, this weakened and undercut the picture’s intended impact. All men are not Brock Turner (Stanford student convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious victim); and all authorities are not Aaron Persky (the judge who gave a shockingly lenient sentence to Turner – more concerned with protecting this white, well to do, student-athlete from “severe” consequences for his actions than with the trauma suffered by his female victim). I don’t know whether Fennel’s heavy-handed sexual polemics are a novice’s error or a calculated strategy to drive home her point to a general audience. Most likely the latter, as the ads for the film emphasize that it is intended to be so provocative as to “jolt us awake.”  Either way, hammering the point this way brings down my grade just a bit for this otherwise very good movie.  

Then again, my female advisor disagrees with me on this point – believing that the film is not about realism but, rather, is meant be read as a parable, much as Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) is a parable about racism - and there weren’t any good white people in Get Out (a film she knows I liked a lot).

Mulligan does quite a nice job in the lead. She is always interesting to watch and is in virtually every frame. Cassie’s character and motivation are slowly yet perceptively revealed over the course of the picture; and while some of this is in the script, a lot of the credit goes to the actor. In fact, Mulligan is able to bring out aspects of Carrie’s personality despite a story design that limits her opportunity to fully do so; because for much of Promising Young Woman, Cassie herself is acting – playing the role of the sexy semi-unconscious drunk, for example or, at one point, a call girl with candy-colored hair. Another time she pretends to have a chance encounter with a former classmate in an effort to entrap her. Alone with her parents, she is reticent and emotionally reserved. How and what she really thinks and feels is a closely guarded secret. She’s like a private eye with many disguises. While the variety of roles Cassie plays gives Mulligan a lot of disparate roles to play as well, this adds an extra degree of difficulty to the actor's job, since she simultaneously has to show us Cassie underneath the role-playing. That’s all to the good, up to a point; but what the script rarely gives Mulligan - or us - are moments with the real Cassie – the young woman playing these roles. Mostly, we just get brief glimpses and hints, so Cassie remains a bit of a mystery throughout. 

One hint may be attributed to Fennel’s collaboration with the film’s art and design department. Cassie is in her early thirties but has a fondness for girly things. She loves pastels and especially pink. When she’s not on the prowl, she’s generally seen in pink tops, pants, or pjs, wearing pink lipstick.  And when she’s not wearing pink, the design team frequently provides it in the form of, for example, pink restaurant napkins, pink flowers, pink neon lighting, or whatever else is at hand. Why pink? I have a theory, but since you may see this film, I’ll let you decide. But do notice.

I mentioned that the supporting cast was good too. There are  many nice performances – mostly short – but standouts include Bo Burnham [Writer-Director of Eighth Grade (2018)] as Cassie’s like-able would-be beau, Ryan; Laverne Cox [Orange is the New Black (2013-19)] as Gail, her coffee shop boss (and closest thing to a friend); and Alison Bree [Glow (2017-19)] as Madison, a former friend. Production design and art direction, music, photography – all are interesting and first rate. 

I expect a lot of folks will see this film. It is likely to generate some interesting and likely conflicting points of view and conversation. While not an arty film or a future classic, it is interesting, entertaining and worthwhile. 

1 hour 53 minutes Rated: R (sexual images and language, possibly disturbing violence)

Grade: B+

Now playing in theaters nationwide (if they are open) and streaming on major platforms including Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and others – currently at a premium price - $19.99. (But no driving, no parking fees, no hassles, and available for the whole family in the comfort of your own residence, all for one price.)