Revenge thriller that leaves expectations for dead.

Emerald Fennell’s twist on the revenge thriller is a provocative stunner.

It all began with a striking image. Talking-point thriller Promising Young Woman – which was unleashed on audiences at the Sundance Film Festival way back in January 2020 – is the feature directorial debut from writer/director Emerald Fennell. “I don’t usually put pen to paper at all until it’s completely finished in my head,” she tells Teasers of her writing process. “But the first moment for me was a girl on a bed, drunk, and somebody’s kind of taking her clothes off, and she’s sitting up and revealing that she’s not drunk. I guess that was the starting point.”

That’s the bombshell idea at the heart of Promising Young Woman, a twist on the rape-revenge genre that was a mainstay of exploitation cinema. Cassie (Carey Mulligan) goes to clubs and pick-up spots, acts inebriated, and just waits for a guy to swoop in and take her home, maintaining the act until the big reveal.

It’s an immensely assured debut: a pastel-coloured shocker that blends tension, social commentary and dark humour with disarming confidence. “The main surprise about making this film is that there’s nothing in this movie at all – a single thing – that hadn’t been a joke in a movie or TV show in the last 15 years,” says Fennell. “Everything that we find shocking in the film – it’s stuff that is in every raunchy comedy movie, or in even family sitcoms.”

Promising Young Woman stars an expectation-busting Mulligan, who was “top of my list,” says Fennell. “Cassie is incredibly damaged, and is in a cycle of really, increasingly dangerous self-harm. I really wanted someone who would just ground that, and just be real.”

Fennell employs several familiar faces as the string of douchey guys that Cassie gets involved with, and gave them some unusual notes. “With all of them, I was like, ‘As far as you are concerned… this is a romcom, and you are the lead of the romcom. This is the beginning of a kind of romcom.’ This is the thing: it’s about context, and what’s been culturally appropriate for so long.”

The idea is a film like this could shine a spotlight on a subject that too often goes unacknowledged. “I hope that making it an enjoyable movie – at least to some people – will enable that conversation to be easier for people to have,” says a self-deprecating Fennell. And, after all but vanishing from the schedule earlier in the year due to the pandemic, PYW is now set for an early 2021 release, where it’ll be debuting on the big screen (hopefully). “It’s a dark comedy and it’s also a sort of horror movie, and I think with those two genres, you do really benefit from watching it with other people...”MM

ETA | 12 FEBRUARY / PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN OPENS NEXT MONTH.