Rage, reckoning come to forefront in debut
Writer/director drew on complacency in teen flicks of youth
Emerald Fennellwanted to write about female rage. Before#MeToo became ubiquitous, she had been thinking about complacency and the teenmovies of her youth where consent was often little more than a throwaway joke. That’s when the idea for her audacious debut “PromisingYoungWoman,” now in theaters where open, started to take shape.
Therewouldn’t be a machete or a machine gun involved, as there often is inmovies about womenseeking revenge. And itwouldn’t be a dour weepie either. Instead, her filmwould be inviting and colorful with a pop soundtrack and a likable cast. And her protagonist Cassie, played by Carey Mulligan, would be the scariest of all avengers: A realwoman.
“I think comedy is usually the bestway of communicating anything really difficult,” Fennell said. “Iwanted tomake a film thatwas accessible to everyone, thatwould say like, ‘OK, come in, everyone’swelcome. But, sorry, nowthat you’re here, the doors are locked.’”
Cassie dropped out of medschool after something traumatic happened and nowworks at a coffee shop in the day and goes out to bars at night appearing to be blind drunk. It’s only after she’s gone home with supposed “good guys” that she reveals she is quite the opposite.
Fennell knewMulligan wouldn’t fight tomake her nice.
“She’s an enormously subtle and enigmatic performer and very grounded,” Fennell said. “Because themovie is sort of allegorical and heightened it really needed the person playing Cassie to feel completely real.”
Mulligan didn’t hesitate to sign on andwas taken aback recently when someone asked if she had any trepidation around playing a “controversial role.”
“There is literally nothing controversial about this,” Mulligan said.“We’re just seeing it for the kind of disturbing truth that it is as opposed to a sort of odd trivialization.”
The supporting cast is packed with familiar faces likeBoBurnham, Jennifer
Coolidge, AdamBrody, Alison Brie, Laverne Cox, AlfredMolina, Connie Britton, Molly Shannon andMaxGreenfield, to name a few.
Mulligan said the quick 23-day-shoot felt like a revolving door of excellent actorswhowould often be there for a day or less.
“The writingwas so strong and everyone just wanted to be in it,” Mulligan said. “There’s no empty role.”
And itwasn’t a coincidence thatmany of them are comedians.
“It’s very easy to be villainous in a kind of sexy way. It’s quite difficult to be weak and lazy and pathetic and misogynistic in a sort of ill-thought outway. The great thing about comedians in general is they think about this stuff all the time. They’re very self-aware and very eager to find those awkward, funny, nasty spaces,” Fennell said. “It’s also incredibly useful if you’re making a film like thiswhere youwant to talk about good people doing bad things. If you’re using actorswhowe already identify as good, whowe have crushes on, whowe think are really funny and cute and great orwomen whowe feel like are our best friends or somebody whowewould go to in an emergency ... that’s when you start tomake the audience a little bit complicit or at least stretch their allegiances.”
“PromisingYoung Woman” is perfectly suited to the moment, but just as the#MeToo reckoning didn’t start with the HarveyWeinstein articles, Fennell’s disgust with the “completely and utterly twisted culture of seduction” she grewup around had been brewing for some time. It’s no surprise that it has struck a nerve and it’s bound to keep people talking.
“Youwant to be a part of a film that people will think about andwon’t just sort of hang up andmove on from!” Mulligan said. “But I think what’s so great about it is that this is a film that youwant to see, you don’t feel like you ought to.”
One of themost extraordinary things about something as assured as “PromisingYoungWoman” is that itwas Fennell’s first time directing a film. But the actor (she plays Camilla Parker Bowles in “The Crown”), writer and “KillingEve” showrunnerwas steadfast in her vision.
Although some financierswere scared off by the provocative ending, Fennell was grateful to have found supportive partners in MargotRobbie’s production companyLucky Chap. They never asked her to step aside for a more seasoned director. And besides, Mulligan said, you’d never have knownit was her first anyway.
“I never for a moment felt like itwas her first film,” Mulligan said. “I felt like she’dmade 50 films, like shewas somelegendary filmmaker who’dwon lots of Oscars.”
She didn’t even see any anxiety or stress fromher director. Although there was one time Fennell got slightly frustrated with her lead. Fennell had asked Coolidge to improvise answers about what she did for a living at a dinner scene andMulligan kept breaking.
“She just kept coming up with the most hilarious jobs, one of whichwas that she trained animals to detect carbonmonoxide. One of themwas shewas a roofer. Iwas just ruining every take because I couldn’t stop laughing,” Mulligan said. “But itwas Emerald’s fault!”
“Iwanted to make a film thatwas accessible to everyone, thatwould say like, ‘OK, come in, everyone’swelcome. But, sorry, nowthat you’re here, the doors are locked’” — Emerald Fennell, writer and director of “Promising YoungWoman”