Promising Young Woman

Promising Young Woman (2020), written and directed by Emerald Fennell, is a film I was extremely excited to watch when I first saw the trailer sometime last year, just before the hit of the seemingly unending corona-lockdown. Now that I’ve seen it almost a year after its scheduled release and a few days after it became an Oscar-nominated film, I’m not entirely sure how to feel about the film’s discussion of certain sensitive topics.

Promising Young Woman’s cast is almost eerily well suited to their roles. Bo Burnham and Allison Brie (as Ryan and Madison respectively) feel exactly like people you might have gone to school with, smart and friendly but not willing to stand apart from their peers. And Carey Mulligan as Cassie makes the complicated character more relatable and sympathetic than she might have been otherwise.

It feels redundant for me to write about the film’s candy colored visuals given the number of other articles I’ve read that make note of the same thing (see: the NY times and Collider). So I don’t think I need to reiterate that point, but it is visually very aesthetically pleasing with lovely colorful costumes and shots, and settings that look like they’ve been crafted for magazine photoshoots. The allegedly “crappy” coffee shop where the film’s main character, Cassie, works is delightfully outfitted with neon lights, colorful pastries, and funky pastel painted wall art. Even Cassie herself is never seen without well-styled blonde hair and Pinterest-perfect outfits. But Cassie’s carefully crafted exterior is just a colorful shell protecting the tumultuous ugliness bubbling inside of her.

Once the film ventures beyond its initial premise; a woman pretends to be extremely drunk in order to lure in men who see no problem in taking advantage of the situation, the true plot is revealed. Cassie engages in a mission to avenge the sexual assault and eventual death of her best friend, Nina, while also trying to balance a new romantic relationship with Ryan (played by Bo Burnham), an old medical school classmate.

(Some spoilers beyond this point)

Cassie is driven by trauma, anger, and immense pain as she enacts her revenge, and at times it’s difficult to stomach. Despite her carefully calculated exterior, Cassie’s actions notate her frightening instability. She orchestrates a situation which leads one former classmate to believe she may have been assaulted and only shortly later implies to a school administrator that her daughter is in a position to be assaulted by a group of male students. For me, this is where the film ventures into questionable territory. Cassie craves satisfaction for what happened to Nina and enacts her retribution in the form of “an eye for an eye”. I’m not sure how Fennell wants the audience to feel about Cassie’s actions. Of course, it’s a complicated situation, but the notion that a woman who perpetuates rape culture deserves to be shown that she is wrong in the form of being raped herself is monstrous, as is the act of threatening someone with the gang-rape of their child. It’s horrifying to think that audience members are expected to applaud the measures Cassie goes to to prove her point.

But within these same actions, the film serves also as a cautionary tale. Cassie is consumed by her desire for revenge, to the point where she is unable to live her own life and eventually drives herself to destruction. Even Nina’s mother, played by Molly Shannon, pleads with Cassie to move on and live her life, which is all that everyone who truly cares about Cassie wants for her. It’s often quoted that “the best revenge is living well,” and Cassie comes so close, but this remains just out of her reach. Instead, Cassie’s last act of the film is to infiltrate the bachelor party of Nina’s rapist, Al, where she plans to use a scalpel to carve Nina’s name into his skin, but in a jarring turn of events, Al smothers her to death and burns her body the next morning. She is murdered and disposed of rather unceremoniously by the same man who raped her friend and got away with it. Although at the end of the movie, it is discovered that Cassie has enacted a plan that leads Al to be arrested for her murder, for me, it felt somewhat empty and unsatisfying.

Even though the ending left me feeling sour, I do understand why Fennell might have taken this route to end the film. When Al kills Cassie, once his friend discovers what has happened, instead of going to the police, he reassures Al that the incident wasn’t his fault and helps him cover up his actions. Neither of them has any regard for Cassie, leaving her face covered by a pillow, like a soulless object, as they plan to dispose of her. For the two men, the crime barely concerns Cassie at all. They don’t think about how she may have felt, what her family will feel, or about any respect she may be owed. Rather it was a mistake Al made that must be hidden so that he can get married, keep his job as a well-respected doctor, and uphold the idea that he is a good guy. Cassie and Nina are stripped of their personhood and cast away like garbage because society’s eagerness to value and protect men, even men who rape and murder, far exceeds the desire to respect, value, and protect women from those men.

With Promising Young Woman, Fennel has crafted a unique and compelling narrative about rape culture, rapists, their victims, and all of the other people whose lives get tangled into these nightmarish incidents of sexual assault. While the film may be beautiful and unassuming, much like its protagonist, it brings with it a set of unexpectedly sharp claws. At least within the confines of Promising Young Woman, abusers are never safe and neither are the people who protect them.   

*Image Credit: IMDB