“They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.” Louise O’Neill, Asking for It
Promising Young Woman
The #me-too movement has been serious business for quite some time. Just ask Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey. First-time helmer/writer Emerald Fennell has expertly added a light touch in the comedy-drama Promising Young Woman, if such an incendiary topic could ever be “light.”
Let’s just say the film illuminates the victim’s side as Cassandra (Carey Mulligan) applies her brand of vengeance on men who have taken advantage of women. A smart, beautiful 30-year-old barista, she is a vigilante because of her dear friend, Nina, who was a victim and not believed (nor was Apollo’s priestess, Cassandra, who was doomed to give out true prophesies but be disbelieved).
Although the film has an episodic sameness with her playing drunk and letting helping men take her home to hit on her, much to each’s regret, Fennell has ingeniously made each episode different by the difference in the men. Until she meets at the coffee shop Mr. Nice, Ryan (Bo Burnham), a pediatric surgeon almost too good to be true.
How Cassie survives and changes is deftly done, almost too spare at times. Yet you get the point, gently with a surprise or two. Men who prey on women will meet their nemesis, and the world needs to give more credence to women who are the object of men's malice.
Promising Young Woman is revenge porn not only provocative because the avenger is a young woman but also because it offers a thriller packed with enough social consciousness to convince a college dean or seasoned judge about the veracity of victims’ claims.
“Before you begin on the journey of revenge, dig two graves.” Proverb
In theaters Christmas day.
Promising Young Woman
Director: Emerald Fennell
Screenplay: Fennell (Killing Eve—TV series)
Cast: Carey Mulligan (Suffragette), Bo Burnham
Run Time: 1h 53m
Rating: R
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JohnDeSando62@gmail.com
