"Promising Young Woman" a daring, scalpel-sharp date-rape indictment

Promising Young Woman (2020)

A rape-revenge black comedy for the #MeToo era doesn’t quite sound like good times at the movies. And yet! Reframing Abel Ferrara’s 1981 exploitationer “Ms .45” for today’s rape culture, “Promising Young Woman” is the daring, brash, and purposefully tragic directorial feature debut of English actress and writer Emerald Fennell (the showrunner for the second season of TV’s “Killing Eve”). Popping with vibrant pastel colors, blistering with bite, and intoxicating to watch with Carey Mulligan as the titular “promising young woman,” the film is a wickedly funny and wildly unpredictable joyride but also very pointed and viciously confrontational in its indictment of sexual misconduct and toxic masculinity. “Promising Young Woman” always says something that everyone could stand to hear and it is bound to rattle some cages of the male persuasion.

Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas (Carey Mulligan) held so much promise before dropping out of medical school. Now, she’s living at home and working as an indifferent barista for a cool boss (Laverne Cox) at a boutique coffee shop. Every night, Cassie goes out to a different club or bar in a different get-up and fakes being so intoxicated that she can barely walk, only to be picked up by predatory men who claim to be “nice guys.” As planned, they take her home, feed her more alcohol, and right before they take advantage of her, Cassie asks what their intentions are and shames them. It’s a loop for Cassie—and she keeps score in a little diary of tally marks—that should give her retribution or some kind of catharsis for what ultimately led to her dropping out: the death of her best friend Nina, also a med student who was raped and subsequently killed herself. Maybe she will actually find a genuinely nice and decent man when reconnecting with classmate Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham), who’s now a pediatric surgeon. 

In covering such thorny subject matter, “Promising Young Woman” has been written and directed with a cheeky sense of humor, auteur style for days, and a fuck-you rage by Emerald Fennell (who actually gives herself a fun little cameo as a YouTuber giving blowjob lip make-up tutorials). Without the word “rape” ever being explicitly spoken, the film confronts the sad, sobering truth that a woman can feel all alone when no one believes her. Familiar buzzwords, phrases, and questions concerning he-said-she-said stories, piss-poor excuses, and consent are used by those who don’t believe or don’t do enough, including “we were just kids,” “he was a nice guy,” “she was asking for it,” and “how much did she have to drink?”

As the title card comes up and DeathbyRomy’s cover of “It’s Raining Men” plays, Cassie makes the obligatory walk of shame in bare feet, shamelessly shoveling a hotdog in her mouth. It looks like blood running down her arm, but it is ketchup. When three construction workers catcall her from across the street, Cassie just stops and gives them the death stare. To be clear, Cassie is not a remorseless slasher, but an extreme teacher making sure she gets her statement through to the bad batches of men. What she does to every man is different, but there is enough ambiguity that keeps Cassie an endlessly fascinating character who’s still hard to pin down. Every time Cassie marks off another would-be conquest in her notebook, her hand is wrapped in a scrunchie, most likely belonging to her best friend (a shorthand for the impact Nina’s death has had on her). Her plan isn’t blind to gender, either, targeting anyone who was complicit, like a college dean (Connie Britton) who did nothing or a former classmate (Alison Brie) who didn’t believe the victim. No one gets off the hook with Cassie.

With a catalog of excellent performances already to her name, a subtly ferocious Carey Mulligan is at the top of her game here as Cassie, a brilliant, seemingly unflappable femme fatale of sorts with a real purpose and the ability to code-switch and put on different personas. Having her best friend's life taken altogether and her own life derailed, Cassie holds an aching sadness (and her grand B-plan) close to the vest that Mulligan can convey with a mere glance. It’s one of those dynamite turns on the same cunning level as Rosamund Pike in “Gone Girl” that would make Mulligan a versatile actress to watch if she weren’t already. Not only this, but Mulligan pulls off playing someone who has to act believably drunk to be taken home. Even if Cassie’s methods are extreme—and nothing can fix her friend’s death—we are on her side. We also hope Cassie comes out the other side.

Each member of the well-cast ensemble makes a mark. Bo Burnham (comedian, actor and director of 2018’s “Eighth Grade”) is instantly likable as Ryan, Cassie’s last hope in trustworthy men who know what "no" means. Alison Brie has a deliciously uncomfortable lunch date as passive-aggressive, smugly all-together former classmate Madison, whom Cassie slyly gets drunk. Molly Shannon has one emotionally understated moment as Nina’s mother, who encourages Cassie to move on, and a nearly unrecognizable Jennifer Coolidge and Clancy Brown are funny and heartbreaking as Cassie’s own at-wits’-end parents. Even Alfred Molina has a quietly devastating turn as a lawyer who took part in silencing many sexual abuse cases and now lives with guilt (look for the dead plants in the background of his home). Normally likable actors also turn up as "nice guys," including Adam Brody, Sam Richardson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Max Greenfield, and Chris Lowell, in a very pivotal role. 

Emerald Fennell’s assuredness behind the camera extends to her carefully chosen musical choices, which are often playfully used and always note-perfect. The opening sequence has a dance-worthy bubblegum remix of Charli XCX’s “Boys” blaring on the soundtrack, only to feel like an ironically scathing critique of the happy-hour man’s world. Donna Missal’s “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” carries a haunting melancholy even before introducing a spiky yet charming meet-cute between Cassie and Ryan. A needle drop of Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are Blind” set in a pharmacy becomes an inspired, sublimely romantic sing-along and montage owned by Bo Burnham’s confident commitment. As Cassie’s journey boils over into a bachelor party where she poses as a stripper in nurse cosplay, there is a moody string arrangement of Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” Finally, the film finds one of the more appropriate uses of Juice Newton’s frequently-heard “Angel of the Morning" in the grimly satisfying finale.

Depending on how you look at it, “Promising Young Woman” could be classified as a horror film. It transcends itself as a revenge thriller of righteous fury, too, with a bracing point-of-view and a fearlessly cockeyed “happy ending.” Provocative and incensed, this conversation-starter and teaching-tool of a film hits hard and cuts deep with Emerald Fennell’s scalpel-sharp script and exhilarating eye behind the camera (shot with style and precision by cinematographer Benjamin Kracun). Make no mistake, this isn’t some man-hating feminist diatribe that spares no one, but its divisive corker of an ending sure is a piercing knife to the heart and then a bruising kick to the balls. One doesn’t have to be a feminist or even a woman to get something out of this. Just be a decent human being.

Grade: A -

Focus Features is releasing “Promising Young Woman” (113 min.) in theaters on December 25, 2020.