Written And Directed by Emerald Fennell
Al: "It's every man's worst nightmare, getting accused of something like that."
Cassie: "Can you guess what every woman's worst nightmare is?"
They say revenge is a dish best served cold but with a protagonist like Cassie (Carey Mulligan), well her methods of fighting wrongs are downright bone chilling. Before going any further with this review, this is definitely a movie that once you've seen will definitely stick with you.
Seven years ago, Cassie's friend Nina was raped by Al Monroe (Chris Lowell). No one except Cassie actually believed Nina and at some point, Nina died. Unable to move on from her friend's ordeal, Cassie made it a one woman mission to get revenge and her methods weren't just reserved for the menfolk either.
With the women who failed Nina, Cassie put them through the gamut of gaslighting. She made another former friend Madison (Alison Brie) panic about having drunken sex with another man while tricking a college dean (Connie Britton) into believing that her daughter was in a room with a bunch of frat boys in order to give both women a taste of what Nina had gone through.
The only positive result from that was it served to guilt Madison into giving Cassie vital evidence she'd later use for her final act of revenge but before then, she played the role of drunk girl to scare the shit out of Neil (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) as well as give Jerry (Adam Brody) an offscreen beating. Or did she kill him? I'm actually not sure with that.
Between schemes of revenge, Cassie also had a nice boss at the coffee shop in Gail (Laverne Cox), worried parents in Susan (Jennifer Coolidge) and Stanley (Clancy Brown) as well as even a brief conversation with Nina's mother (Molly Shannon). Unfortunately none of them could veer Cassie off her revenge driven path.
Then there was Ryan (Bo Burnham). He seemed promising and he seemed like he really could've been the one for Cassie until that bit from his past came to light and it's a shame because I was rooting for the guy until then. At least Al's former lawyer (Alfred Molina) had developed a conscience and aided Cassie at the last minute.
As for the final revenge itself. I loved the final confrontation between Cassie and Al and while it was brilliant that not even death could stop her from getting her revenge, I still would've preferred to have seen Cassie be alive and well and to have witnessed Al's downfall for herself. Still though, she definitely got her revenge in glorious style.
- Emerald Fennell who wrote and directed this movie also makes a brief cameo as a makeup tutorial video artist.
- The title refers to the infamous Brock Turner case from 2016.
- Standout music: Far too many choices here but the best ones are DeathByRomy's version of It's Raining Men, Paris Hilton's Stars Go Blind, Britney Spears Toxic and Juice Newton's Angel In The Morning.
- Chronology: By the end of this movie, it was July 27th.
Promising Young Woman is an ambitious, bold piece of film making. Emerald Fennell delivers a biting script and gets extraordinary performances out of her cast, especially Carey Mulligan. The latter delivers a career high performance and while I'm not sure about a certain outcome, there's no denying this film has left a lasting impression.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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