Review: Promising Young Woman is a jolting feminist revenge thriller

There was a collective surge of righteous anger when many of the first major #MeToo revelations came to light, which quickly gave way to a dispiriting feeling of hopelessness — how had these men been able to continue their openly despicable behaviour for so long without any consequences? That bristling anger and sense of injustice fuels Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, a darkly comic feminist revenge tale starring Carey Mulligan as a woman who moonlights as a serial killer/vigilante, taking down men who try to take advantage of her.

Mulligan plays Cassie Thomas, a 30-year-old woman who works an unfulfilling job at a coffee shop, seemingly just to be able to commiserate with her boss Gail (Laverne Cox). Cassie lives with her parents Stanley (Clancy Brown) and Susan (Jennifer Coolidge), who are rattled that Cassie’s life seems to be stuck in neutral. Things weren’t always this way — Cassie was once a medical school student, who dropped out after her close friend Nina was sexually assaulted by a fellow student named Al (Chris Lowell) who suffered no consequences for the assault that destroyed Nina’s life. Still dealing with her feelings of guilt over Nina’s rape, she spends her evenings at various night clubs where she acts drunk and waits for men to try and take advantage of her “intoxicated” state before turning the tables and exacting her own brutal brand of vigilante justice.

While at the coffee shop, Cassie meets Ryan (Bo Burnham), a former classmate who recognizes her from her medical school days. They quickly hit it off and begin dating, which seems to bring Cassie out of her shell until she discovers that Al is now engaged, and his bachelor party is quickly coming up. Cassie devises a plan to seek revenge for Nina’s assault, which leads her on a spiraling journey of confronting former classmates, educators, and the lawyer involved with the case, before culminating in her ultimate revenge plan at Al’s bachelor party.

Much of the impact of the film takes place in those final moments, which we won’t be spoiling here — suffice it to say, the film opts for a darker ending than audiences may hope for, which stays true to the seriousness of Cassie’s predicament without offering up a Hollywood quick fix for her situation.

As dark as much of the film is, writer-director Emerald Fennell does a commendable job (in her feature debut!) of demonstrating the various sides of Cassie’s personality. While she can unflinchingly kill someone who tries to take advantage of her, she can also bust out an incredible sing-along to Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are Blind” in the middle of a convenience store.

That dichotomy is also at play in the film’s design, which balances the moments of violence against a neon-heavy aesthetic that speaks to the anger lurking underneath Cassie’s outgoing self-presentation.

Carey Mulligan delivers an incredible and complex performance as Cassie. In many ways, it’s almost a thankless role — because of Cassie’s severe actions, audiences will have to decide pretty early on in the film if they’re on-board with her or not, which severely impacts how one processes the events of the movie.

Bo Burnam is best known as a comedian, and he brings a sense of wholesomeness to the part of Ryan that works in an insidious way as he burrows his way into Cassie’s heart as the “good guy” she’s been seeking before things eventually turn south.

There is a lot to admire about Promising Young Woman — it’s a visually dazzling, extremely angry and funny movie, filled with strong performances and a complicated and nuanced script. Unfortunately, so much rests on the film’s final controversial moments that it’s hard to discuss the impact of the film without delving into spoilers, and even then, reviewers are fairly split on the meaning of those final moments and what it says about Cassie’s journey, victimhood and revenge.

While Fennell seems determined not to provide audiences (or Cassie) with any easy answers, there is more than enough to recommend Promising Young Woman to anyone looking for an unsentimental and uncompromising revenge thriller that puts abusers (and their enablers) in their place.

Promising Young Woman is available to rent or own on VOD now.