Promising Young Woman has had a whole extra year to tease out audience expectations fuelled by a haunting trailer that presents Cassie (Carey Mulligan) turning the tables on would-be male sexual predators to the sound of screeching strings. Initially slated for release in UK cinemas in April 2020, the pandemic saw it pushed back and back. Now it arrives on Sky Cinema with two Baftas in hand but also criticisms about underwhelming feminist credentials biting at its rear.
To recap the story: Cassie, a once promising young medical student, is now pushing 30 and living at home with her parents. Her purpose comes from a nightly ritual of pretending to be drunk in order to lure male would-be predators. The story arc is set in motion by a former classmate Ryan (Bo Burnham) appearing in the guise of a romantic suitor. Their budding relationship is interrupted by Cassie’s more targeted vengeance plans that hook into the cause of her derailment: the mysterious tragedy of her childhood BFF N
After losing her best friend in a mysterious tragedy, Cassie (Carey Mulligan) has put her career aspirations on ice. Instead she spends her nights drawing in sexual predators by pretending to be drunk and then dispensing her own form of justice.
by Sophie Monks Kaufman |
Posted
3 hours ago
Promising Young Woman is a wolf in sheep’s clothing; a revenge drama that looks like a romcom. Don’t be fooled by the heightened girly colours or high-gloss production values there is molten fury running through the hot-pink veins of Emerald Fennell’s debut feature and, deeper down, grief for women who have lost so much and stand to lose even more. The antagonist here is not so much a single character, as it is broad social attitudes towards sexual violence against women. Fennell’s greatest move is to mount genre storytelling atop sincere emotional undercurrents which build to a crashing wave by the finale.