There is a lot to unpack in this movie.

Promising Young Woman is one of those films where it’s best to go in not knowing very much as part of the journey is the revealing of the motivations behind the lead character Cassandra. Therefore, I will be only giving a rough overview of the film and revealing details in the first 15/20 minutes.

The film is the loudest movie which can easily be associated with the Me Too movement. It’s a dark rape revenge thriller in which one woman goes around getting revenge on those who take advantage of intoxicated women. Carrey Mulligan plays Cassandra, a thirty year old woman working in a coffee shop who has previously dropped out of medical school. Seemingly disenfranchised with her day life, we wonder how she ended up here. By night she lives a totally different life. She goes to bars, pretends to be inebriated and waits for a man to take her home. Once home, when he tries to take advantage of her, she immediately reveals she’s sober, freaking them out. she writes their first names and adds a tally to her notebook which is pages long, showing the scale of this epidemic.

In this story, we learn why Cassandra acts in this way as she meets someone from her old medical school and plots her ultimate revenge as she’s reminded of why she left there. The film feels like a mix of 13 Reasons Why and The Joker and is significantly better than both.

This sort of film has the potential to go down many routes. Therefore, I will (with help from the BBFC) describe how far the film goes. You don’t see any rape on the screen. However, the BBFC describes it as the following (highlight it to reveal as there are minor plot spoilers:

There are frequent references to sexual violence. There are sequences of sexual assault as men attempt to have sex with a woman who they believe to be inebriated. There are also verbal references to a recording of a woman who was raped by a man at a party, as others watched. It is implied in some sequences that the video is played on a mobile device, but only undetailed audio can be heard. Hopefully with these details, you can decide whether you want to see the movie.

To make such a film is an incredibly difficult balancing act. The fact that Cassandra only talks to these men instead of doing anything more vengeful makes it more approachable to some. However, to others it allows them to get away unharmed. That was the tightrope Emerald Fennell had to walk, and often she got it right as she keeps you on board and intrigues throughout. Sure, we don’t see Cassandra physically hurt anybody early on, however it is still a very real possibility especially when the cases get more personal. I did question whether the ending was the right thing to do, as it felt slightly against the message of the rest of the story. Should she have been more vengeful throughout the whole movie? Would it have made a stronger film? I’m not sure.

The film will no doubt receive a backlash. “Oh, it says all men are bad. The snowflakes have made me sad”. It’s certainly going to make some people uncomfortable, but while most of the men in this story are bad, most of the women are just as toxic and enabling. Alison Brie and Connie Britton’s characters come out of the film just as badly. There is a lot of anger, and it’s aimed at society and is very explicit with its reasons.

The film provides little subtlety in its script, which is for the better. You hear lines of “I’m a nice guy”, “We were young”, “I have to give him the benefit of the doubt”, “An accusation like that could ruin his career”. The sort of lines that are regularly used in these situations. Each one is coolly delivered at the right time. It’s not subtle in its linkages to The Joker either. There is one point where Cassie smears her make up on her face and I wondered if she was about to describe how she “got these scars”.

The casting of the film was impeccable. Carey Mulligan playing this female joker role was inspired. She was angry, cool, calculated and level headed, keeping the audience on side and engaged. It’s the sort of film which you start watching with questions and you learn more about her as you go on. She was helped by an absolutely exceptional script. While in the opening scene, I was worried that the lines seemed far too on the nose and clunky, once the film settled down it got really good. There were some fairly obvious plot points coming amongst the unpredictability. However, I was so in the zone that they didn’t occur to me until just as they were about to happen. The film is angry and rightly so. The script includes a few lines that really are self aware. It’s not just the men who take Cassandra home, it’s everyone else in the wider society. Without plot spoilers, one of the most awful set of lines come from a woman who was in a position of power talking about “the benefit of the doubt”. The list of excuses and reasons for the actions truly are chilling.

Away from this, the soundtrack was incredible. The all female vocalists singing along to some quite punkish music only added to the angry ambience. The version of Toxic which plays before the climax scene is especially noteworthy. this alongside the very bright pink aesthetic make the film stand out in a very crowded market, contrasting the dark undertones that thematically run throughout the film.

I found the film to be highly engaging overall. There were some obvious plot points coming, but I was so engaged I never really noticed them until they hit me in the face. I supported Cassandra and her reasons for revenge as well as her methods. The film looked and sounded amazing and I had a great time.

Summary

Promising Young Woman is an angry film which yells its grievances with very little subtlety. This is by no means a bad thing as Emerald Fennell wrote an engaging, interesting film which was brilliantly executed with a fantastic leading actress in Carrey Mulligan. I won’t have any complaints if the film pulls off a shock win at the Oscars. [Grade: B+]