'Promising Young Woman' Review
NR (It’ll be rated R though)Runtime: 1 Hr and 53 MinutesProduction Companies: LuckyChap Entertainment, FilmNation EntertainmentDistributor: Focus FeaturesDirector: Emerald FennellWriters: Emerald FennellCast: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Connie Britton, Laverne CoxRelease Date: April 17, 2020
Suspiciously unambitious Cassie (Carey Mulligan) leads a quiet existence as a barista who lives in her parents’ house since dropping out of medical school. She and her friendly boss, Gail (Laverne Cox), gab away days at the cafe. The way she spends her evenings, however, reveals a boiling vendetta. Men who cross her path are in serious danger, as beautiful and brutal Cassie seeks to heal from past trauma by doling out scathing lessons. When Ryan (Bo Burnham), a former classmate, re-enters her life, so does the possibility of healing — until new details about the death of her best friend infuriate Cassie and inspire her most potent confrontation yet.
Two years ago multiple big award committees slept on Carey Mulligan’s performance in Wildlife and snubbed her for the Best Actress nomination she deserved. Now she’s back, bigger and bolder than ever, ready to claim the title she so rightfully deserves in Emerald Fennell’s debut feature, Promising Young Woman, where she delivers a career-best performance. As Cassie, Mulligan exudes nothing but power in every sense. She delivers this badass strength of wit and coldness; just one glance from her and you’re immediately intimidated. She utilizes her power of manipulation to always be five steps ahead of her targets. She acts ditzy while predatory White men try to take advantage of her and then pulls a reversal to end up on top, carrying her own torch and burning her targets without a care. Mulligan is in absolute control in every scene and you’re riveted by her throughout. When Cassie plants her trap so devilishly and pulls the switch on the predatory men who try to get in her pants, you feel the sweet release of empowerment that sends chills down your spine. I have never seen a performance of this type ever before and it truly takes someone as uniquely talented as Mulligan to deliver it perfectly. If she doesn’t get any golden statues — or at least a nomination — during the next awards season, I will gladfully throw hands with someone.Another great performance in the film comes from (to no one’s surprise) Bo Burnham!
Bo Burnham plays Ryan, Cassie’s comic relief/love interest and he friggin’ rules. He was perfectly cast in this role, for he’s used to the film’s advantage. His natural wholesome energy is great and his chemistry with Mulligan is spectacular. You mix a character with the comic stylings of the actor matched with Mulligan’s cynical dry nature, resulting in a lot of well-delivered laughs in the midst of an adorable budding romance.
For this being Emerald Fennell’s feature debut as a director and screenwriter, a good majority of her story is powerfully effective. From a storytelling standpoint, I’m in awe at the amount of bold choices made throughout, some being so unconventional that they leave you in shock. It does get rough around the edges, which I’ll get to later on, but for the most part, Promising Young Woman is well balanced in its various aspects. I praised Mulligan’s incredible performance, but it’s mostly due to how Fennell writes Cassie and her unique story. Cassie is full of rage over the loss of her childhood best friend to this criminal act done by a man, which made her life turn out for the worst. She’s a 30-year-old med school dropout and working at a small coffee shop, living with her parents (who make it clear how much they want her to move out) as she wastes time trapping men to feel something. You feel the weight of her depression and sticking it to the man is both her cathartic release and the stepping stones for her revenge plot to seek justice over the death of her best friend while everyone close to her wants her to move on. At its center, this is both a revenge story and a coming-of-age tale and both elements are well balanced.Fennell depicts the cruel reality dominated by toxic masculine men and is in your face with it, but it never hits a certain level of pretension or sacrifices the integrity of her anger, even for the sentimental areas it heads down to. Once you pick up on what Cassie’s motivation is and how it ties into the current/relevant #MeToo era, you become as fired up as Cassie. She plays by her own rules and the more that her plan of revenge comes into fruition, the more entertaining it becomes, especially with the jaw-dropping twists and turns that occur along the way. This is a movie that pretty much says, “Fuck men,” and doesn’t give two shits what you think. For example, the film opens with men in casual clothing dancing in the club, doing that pelvis move where it looks like they’re humping the air, which I clocked as the gender-reversed booty shot. You know the shot where the male director has the camera up on the woman’s ass (any Michael Bay movie ever), but this is the gender reverse of that! Small details like those enhance the strong vision Fennell has with this story.
I commend Promising Young Woman for the bold unconventional routes it takes, but I can’t disregard how incoherent some of the pieces are. The movie bears a nearly two-hour running time and so much of the first act doesn’t work for me. There’s this one extensive scene with Cassie pulling the rug from a guy played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse that 1) goes on for too long and 2) doesn’t contribute anything to the story. It felt like a deleted scene that had no reason to end up in the final cut. It took a while for me to adjust to the film’s distinctive tone that at times felt like it was all over the place. Once I realized the movie tells you to either ride or die, I hopped in and enjoyed the ride.
There are some twists that can be predicted because of how the dark tone lightens up. Not to give too much away, but when something too good occurs and it emphasizes that too much, you can predict when and where the shit will hit the fan. Any issues I had with this film changed by the finale, which is *chef’s kiss* perfect in every way. It’s as bold, emotionally riveting, angering, and daring all at once that no other movie of this year has to offer. I mean yes, it’s too early to call but as far as unapologetic boldness goes, this stands on top. Coming up with a rating, even long after the festival, is like an odd math equation where I wasn’t feeling the first act, the second was really good but had too many extensive moments that didn’t fully click, and the third act was absolute perfection… ugh. Promising Young Woman is a good movie overall, but the issues I had with its narrative are heavily overhauled by Fennell’s rightfully aggressive execution alongside Mulligan’s pitch-perfect performance. Rating: 3.5/5 | 74%
