RAMPAGE OF REVENGE

In PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN Cassie (Carey Mulligan) is a 30-year-old medical school dropout who lives with her parents (Clancy Brown and Jennifer Coolidge) and works at a coffee shop run by her friend Gail (Laverne Cox).

But at night – fuelled by revenge for something that happened to her best friend – Cassie goes to nightclubs, pretends to be drunk and waits for a “nice guy” to offer to take her home. When he inevitably tries to take advantage of her, she promptly turns the tables.

Then she runs into an old classmate, Ryan (Bo Burnham), and starts thinking of leaving her quest for vengeance behind.

It’s remarkable that this attention-grabbing thriller is the directorial debut of actress Emerald Fennell (Camilla in The Crown), who also wrote the Oscar-winning script. She’s completely in control of the challenging material and confidently frames the action with unusual camera angles. The production design and Cassie’s wardrobe make the nightclub scenes garish and threatening, which contrasts vividly with the pastels of her daytime wardrobe and the safe spaces of her workplace and home.

This adds to the heightened reality feel and helps paper over some cracks in scenes that aren’t wholly convincing.

Mulligan gives a commanding performance and she’s ably supported by Brown, Coolidge and Cox in small roles. Casting nerdy-looking actors as Cassie’s targets also cleverly breaks the stereotype of what sexual predators look like.

Unfortunately, the ending feels like a copout that’s not as clever as Fennell thinks it is. But what’s gone before holds your attention while challenging your thinking about how society handles accusations of sexual assault. – SANDRA VISSER