Promising Young Woman

Carey Mulligan is on a mission for revenge in Emerald Fennell’s quirky Oscar-nominated black comedy.

For years, scholars and film buffs have waged a war of words, debating one of the most important questions of our time: can a bubblegum-tinged revenge film about a very current and serious subject, which includes cameos from McLovin’ and Stifler’s Mom, and a dating montage backed by a Paris Hilton song, be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture? Now we know – the answer is emphatically yes.

Joke aside, it would be a serious disservice to simply focus on the elements of director Emerald Fennell’s film that set it apart from a stereotypical awards season favourite. Promising Young Woman is a timely film – a Kill Bill for the #MeToo movement, with Carey Mulligan’s Cassie seeking vengeance from all of those who wronged her, like Uma Thurman’s Bride did years prior. The film’s title is a reference to the remarks made by a California judge in 2016, when ex-Stanford student Brock Turner was found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman after a frat party. The judge described him as a ‘promising young man’ and sentenced him to a measly six months in prison, of which he served three. Fennell’s Promising Young Woman is a response born out of the frustration that grows larger and more intense every time a new incident of this kind reaches the public domain – every Brock Turner, every Harvey Weinstein, every President Donald Trump – and presents the subject matter in a blunt yet quirky way. The Tarantino influence isn’t confined to the similarities of two films with blonde-haired heroines out for revenge – the tension and violence throughout Promising Young Woman has the same absurdist, over-the-top flavour that Tarantino has been famous for since Michael Madsen danced to Stealers Wheel’s ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ while removing a cop’s ear in Reservoir Dogs. Fennell even uses chapters, displayed on screen, to structure the main plot, a stylistic approach employed consistently across Tarantino’s filmography. The film feels like a passing of the torch from Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, 2020’s all-conquering (Golden Globes snub aside) landmark series that explored Coel’s own experience as a sexual assault victim. Both pieces of work cover the common ground of sexual assault, consent, victim blaming, and the unsatisfactory response from others to each situation, told through the lens of a millennial in the digital age.

Carey Mulligan is Cassie, an ex-medical school student who dropped out of college after her best friend, Nina, was raped at a party on campus. The attacker, Al Monroe, went unpunished after the school and police dropped their investigation, and Cassie’s life is now in a state of limbo – she is no longer pursuing her career in medicine, she is back living with her parents, and she works in a coffee shop to pass time. There is only one thing that keeps Cassie going – every week, she sprawls out on a nightclub couch or props herself up against a bar and waits until a man watching in the distance decides she is drunk enough to shamelessly manoeuvre her barely conscious body in to a taxi and back to his house. Just as her sleazy prince in shit-stained armour is about to take advantage of her, she untwists her body and her words stop to slur. Cassie has been sober the entire time, and her drunken questioning of ‘what are you doing’ as she’s being undressed becomes a ‘what are you doing?’ with clear-headed conviction, stopping each would-be assailant in their tracks and shining a light on their unacceptable behaviour. This weekly one-woman crusade against seedy men is enough to satisfy Cassie’s Patrick Bateman-esque blood lust, if you swap blood for teaching them a lesson in behaving appropriately, until a throwaway comment during a chance encounter with an ex-medical school classmate (Bo Burnham) gives her something more meaningful to focus on. Al Monroe is back living locally, and Cassie senses a chance to inflict some overdue payback directly on the original source of her and Nina’s pain. She sets about concocting a plan that, although packaged like Lindsay Lohan’s Cady destroying head Mean Girl Regina George, will have severe consequences for everyone who failed Nina years ago.

Mulligan’s Cassie encounters a revolving door of familiar faces on her quest for vengeance. Bo Burnham, a stand-up comedian you’re more likely to come across on a late night Netflix browsing session than a Hollywood film, is Ryan, the ex-medical school classmate of Cassie who uses his clumsy, clean-cut charm to be the one thing that distracts her from the revenge plot. Mulligan and Burnham have convincing chemistry, particularly in a hilarious scene at the dinner table of Cassie’s parents’ house, played by Jennifer Coolidge (Stifler’s Mom in American Pie) and Clancy Brown (the ruthless prison guard in Shawshank Redemption). Alison Brie and Max Greenfield also pop up as faces from Cassie’s past, with Brie returning to Trudy from Mad Men-levels of pomp. Cassie is even welcomed in to the home of Alfred Molina, framed just like Dirk Diggler’s visit in Boogie Nights, though this time he plays a retired lawyer instead of a coked-up drug dealer and fortunately there are no firecrackers involved.

Mulligan’s central performance makes the film. She is commanding when combating her aggressors, fully in control, with a hint of sarcasm that is required for the black comedy vibe of the film. To repeat the American Psycho comparison, Cassie is reminiscent of Patrick Bateman in that she’s seen toying with or tormenting people yet is somehow funny and likeable while doing it. The film does jump between different styles which can leave you feeling like you aren’t quite settled in to a rhythm – going from a thrilling, almost horror-esque set-up to straight up rom-com in the scenes between Mulligan and Burnham. No problem for Mulligan, who has a constant radiance as she half-heartedly attempts to avoid the courting of Burnham’s Ryan.

Variety magazine issued an apology after writer Dennis Harvey questioned Mulligan’s suitability for the film, referencing Margot Robbie’s role as producer on the project and suggesting that she would have been a better, sexier fit. The suggestion of Robbie in itself isn’t ridiculous, though it’s maybe too close to being a rehash of her failed bubblegum-fuelled outings as Harley Quinn. I make that three appearances as the neon-tinged member of the Suicide Squad and I don’t think anyone outside the hardcore comic-book crowd really cares for it. Suggesting an alternative actress is one thing, but Variety describing Mulligan as ‘bad drag’ is way off the mark and feels pretty lazy, especially given they also described her as ‘skilful, entertaining and challenging’ in the same review. Promising Young Woman takes several ambitious leaps and some of them miss, but Carey Mulligan’s performance isn’t one of them.

The betting odds have recently been slashed on Mulligan’s chances of picking up Best Actress at the Academy Awards – she’s now odds-on favourite to pick up her first Oscar, and pip the likes of previous frontrunner Frances McDormand in the process. Maybe she will channel Cassie and take an opportunity to bite back against the harsh words in Variety’s review? Either way – a promising young woman indeed.