Hooked on vengeance
‘Promising Young Woman’ tale of retribution for #MeToo era
In the glossy #MeToo-era horror-fantasy “Promising Young Woman” from “Killing Eve” scribe and “The Crown” actress Emerald Fennell, Carey Mulligan plays Cassandra, a young woman we first meet when she appears helplessly drunk at a bar and being eyed by a group of predatory young men. Cassandra is a medical school dropout, who is nearing 30 and living with her confounded parents (Jennifer Coolidge and Clancy Brown). Cassie keeps a diary full of red X’s and can see what most men will do under the right — or make that wrong? — circumstances, and that is they will take sexual advantage of a woman not capable of making a choice. Cassie works her revenge in the name of her childhood friend Nina, who was assaulted by multiple men when she was helplessly drunk.
Written, directed and produced by Fennell and also produced by Margot Robbie, “Promising Young Woman” is a sinister, if also admirable piece of work. It’s sinister because it delves into the issue of rape committed by young men of otherwise respectable repute from good families with fine educations who usually get away with it. The film suggests that these men can be rapists given the
right time, place, access and victim. Cassandra seeks out these young sexual criminals by dressing provocatively, going to area watering holes and pretending to get publicly intoxicated.
She is both fisherman and bait, and she always has a
catch. When she isn’t the warrior princess of victims of male sexual abuse, Cassandra works at a tiny coffee shop owned by Gail (Laverne Cox), where Cassandra is reunited with former classmate Ryan (actor and director of “Eighth
Grade” Bo Burnham), who just wants to date her. Can Cassandra stop playing the superhero of sexual vengeance and have a real, romantic relationship with a member of the opposite sex?
I wish I had been more interested in the answer. “Promising Young Woman” exploits its premise with brilliant zeal and intelligence. Cassandra is sort of like the assassins of “Killing Eve,” although she assassinates reputations and not people. But I could see the parts of the machine whirring away so clearly, I had trouble believing in Cassie or her driving force. In one less-than-credible sequence, Cassie appears to set up another woman from her past (Alison Brie) to be a victim of the despicable act she has been on a crusade to avenge. Mulligan is fine in the role, but her Cassie seems a lot more like a symbol of the #MeToo movement than a real person. Plus, there is a limit to the number of idiotic pop tunes I can tolerate.
(“Promsing young Woman” contains sexually suggestive scenes, sounds of sexual violence and profanity.)