Promising Young Woman Review
TW: Sexual Assault, Violence and Suicide
“Promising Young Woman,” directed by Emerald Fennell and starring Carey Mulligan, was released at the tail end of 2020 and has inspired both controversy and attention from various awards shows. At the 2021 Golden Globes the film was nominated in four categories (though it did not win any of them) and at British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) it received 6 nominations. BAFTA will announce the winners on Apr. 11. The controversy in the discourse about the film is mostly about the morality of Cassie, Carey Mulligan’s character, and the divisive ending. This review will be split into non-spoiler and spoiler sections, so if you’ve not seen the film and want to avoid spoilers, feel free to stick around for this first part.
“Promising Young Woman” is a revenge story. Cassie’s life was disrupted by a tragedy before the film picks up. When the audience meets her, she is obsessed with getting her version of justice on would-be rapists. When you think about a revenge story featuring a woman hunting down men, what comes to mind? I’m willing to bet that for a lot of people it is “Kill Bill,” Tarantino’s two volume bloody revenge affair. “Promising Young Woman” is not “Kill Bill,” it does not revel in and glorify violent revenge. It is a different sort of revenge Cassie is after. Some whose lives have been affected by sexual assault feel a lack of control.
Cassie is looking for control over these awful men in the course of her journey, and that is a refreshing motivator in revenge tales like this. There is a place for violent revenge tales that leaves innumerable bodies in the heroine’s wake. Anger, too, is a valid and common response to being violated. Furthermore, revenge fantasies like that give a sense of control in a way too, but a film that acknowledges the other ways rape ruins lives? That’s powerful and a breath of fresh air. It’s different from traditional revenge flicks in other ways too. There are consequences in this film: the aftermath of tragedy diverted Cassie’s life, and the obsession with revenge and control she develops further takes her life off-track and affects her relationship with herself, the people around her and the world.
As the film goes on, it becomes clear that Fennell’s sights are set on rape culture, those who perpeuate it and those who are complicit in their silence. The rapists in this film and those who at one point or another defend rapists, either explicitly or implicitly, are not portrayed as obviously evil villains at first. They’re people, sometimes they’re kind, sometimes they seem very normal, they don’t seem all that different from most of the people you interact with every day. Yet, they’re not kind, they’re awful men who should by all means be in jail or worse. This is a far more realistic depiction of sexual assault than much of the media has. It’s a horrifically common situation for a man who seems normal to rape a woman. This expands beyond the rapist though, his friends, who also seem like normal guys, all too often defend him. It’s far less common for a man to dress up like he’s about to rob a bank, go into the night and prowl for defenseless women to rape. Make no mistake, the latter happens, and it is horrifying and traumatizing for victims. but according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest Network (RAINN) 19.5% of rapes are carried out by people who are strangers to the victim.
Throughout her quest, Cassie does some things that are very much not legal, and some that are of quite questionable morality. It makes sense that people question her morality. I don’t believe she’s a wholly good person, but I do dispute those who claim that this hurts the movie. On the contrary I think it improved the movie. Cassie is not an angel, but she’s not supposed to be. Her obsession is not healthy, but that was not the intention nor is it shown as healthy. She is traumatized and obsessed and will go to great lengths to achieve her revenge. She overlooks possibly catastrophic consequences of her actions, and that makes her all the better as a character. She is far from a moral paragon. She’s a woman whose life was ruined by the actions of a monster and will cross many lines to achieve revenge, and in some way, closure for her obsession.
Okay, this is where the spoilers are going to start. The whole movie will be spoiled. If you have not seen it, go watch it. It is one of the best depictions of rape culture I’ve seen in the media, and the performances are wonderful, just be careful about triggers.
An aspect of the film I’ve not seen talked about much is how, in her revenge against Madison (Allison Brie), Cassie later says to her that the man she hired did not rape her, and yet, that is a very big assumption to make. Preceding her meeting up with Madison, Cassie spends the beginning of the movie knowing how awful so many men are and taking revenge upon them once they try to rape her while she’s pretending to sleep. After that opening, how on earth can Cassie be to any degree certain that the man she’s hired will not rape the very intoxicated, unconscious woman alone in the hotel room with him? The film shows us multiple instances of “normal guys” attempting to rape Cassie when they believe she is very drunk, then expects us to believe Cassie has total confidence this man will not rape a drunk, unconscious woman? That’s a stretch. The alternative to Cassie being shortsighted is that she knew it was a possibility and went through with it anyways. That would take her from someone of questionable morality to someone who’s suborned rape, and given her quite solid belief in the awful nature of many men, implicitly ordered the rape of a woman- which would be inexcusable, regardless of what Madison did. Both options are possible. Later in the movie she has no problem making a mother believe her underage daughter, Amber (Francisca Estevez), is being raped by multiple men. It’s quite possible that if Dean Walker (Connie Britton) had not apologized, Cassie would have turned that lie she told into the truth. It’s also possible she was simply shortsighted with the Madison situation and would not have carried through on the threat to the dean. Either way, I think this aspect of Cassie’s character and the film deserve a more prominent place in the central discourse.
In regards to what the most prominent aspect of the central discourse, we arrive at the ending of “Promising Young Woman.” It’s unsurprising that it’s split people. It is a brutally realistic ending, with Cassie’s death at the hands of the physically stronger Al Monroe (Chris Lowell) and her post mortem plan. I think that the ending was fitting, perhaps the most fitting for Cassie’s character. No, Al and the others may not get what they deserve, because the justice system is an unfair system that benefits the privileged, and Cassie’s family will mourn her loss, but Cassie’s primary goal wasn’t justice, at least not legal justice. The ending of this film is the inevitable end of Cassie’s endless and self-destructive obsession with avenging Nina. No, it is not a happy ending for Cassie. She met a very painful and abrupt end, but a happy ending is not what she was after. If Al had not escaped one of his handcuffs and killed her, she would have tortured and killed him, probably got caught and her own life would be forfeit in her mind either way. Cassie forfeited her life when Nina died, and she swore revenge on rapists- Al Monroe most of all. She forfeited her life again after realizing Ryan’s part in Nina’s rape. In the end, the path Cassie’s life went down isn’t what Nina would have wanted, it isn’t what her family wanted, it’s not what a Cassie before Al’s rape of Nina would have wanted, but to Cassie, at that point, her life didn’t matter. Taking down the man who raped and led to the death of her lifelong best friend was all that mattered. Though she paid the ultimate price for it, she achieved that in the end but had to give up her future and life from a long time ago.
