Rape-revenge fantasy makes no apologies
You’ve never seen a girl quite like Emerald Fennell’s “Promising YoungWoman” before.
The daring directorial debut of the English actress and writer (showrunner of “Killing Eve” Season 2; Camilla Parker Bowles on “The Crown”) is an unapologetic stiletto straight to the teethofinsidiousrapeculture, one that will have you cackling, cringing and cackling once again at its pastel-pink nihilismand scathing indictmentof“niceguy” misogyny. Ferociouslyperformedby an all-time great CareyMulligan, “Promising YoungWoman” dares to fulfill a very specific kind of rape-revenge fantasy.
Fennell’s ultra-modern fable is wildly unpredictable but all too recognizable. Like her heroine, “Promising YoungWoman” is seductive, bruisingandutterlyintoxicating. The film’s seven-minute prologue, its opening salvo, if you will, is its thesis statement and introduction to its brutal yetmischievous point of view. These few minutes sharply skewer the “asking for it” rhetoric that justifies thekindof sexual abuseperpetuated not by anonymous attackers hiding in bushes, but clean-cut, exceedingly averagemenat bars and parties who claim to be “nice” while cajoling, manipulating, coercing and worse.
Mulligan is Cassie, a med school dropout turned surly coffeeshopclerkwhospends
her nights trolling bars for men to take her home. In smeared makeup and tootall heels, with a convincing head loll, she seems drunk and helpless, going along with their coercions before dropping the act and enacting her revenge.
Fennell’s film isn’t all that gory, but it has the attitude and tone of a horror movie, rendered in cupcake colors. Cassie utilizes her ultra-feminine presentation of long blonde locks, florals and garish makeup as armor, a disguise and as aweapon in her war. It’s a reflection of the film’s internal logic that nothing iswhat it seems, the script is built on constant reveals that walk the viewer down one path before ripping the rug out. It’showCassie structures her “kills” in her obsessive revenge quest, drawing in her victims beforewreakingmentalhavocuponthem.
Every stylistic choice, from the pitch-perfect production design by Michael Perry to the unique compositions of cinematographer Benjamin Kracun, mirror our leading lady and her actions.
Cassie becomes a boogeyman, the hot drunk girl that menwhisperwarnings about toeachother. She’sagirlyversion of Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver,” a loner and outsider wronged by the world and outraged at the callousness of others. Night after night she creates nightmare scenarios at barsandclubs, then wrests control, in a gesture toward her own desire for empowerment. Like Travis, she’s not OK, and like Travis, a true happy ending would be almost impossible.
Whatfeels so freeingabout Fennell’s take on the subject is she lets her heroine be mad about it, and to act on that rage.