Emerald Fennell's debut feature is an extremely fractured mix of rape-revenge thriller and black comedy that has a lot of important things to say, and some amazing performances, in particular from Mulligan (perhaps a career best?) and her co-star Bo Burnham.
Its biggest problems lie in its off-the-charts tonal shifts (particularly in the first half of the film). Some scenes aim for thrills and deliver, other aim for laughs and fail. The second pick-up scene, early in the film, is a good example, where the sheer dorkiness of Mulligan's hipster mark should have provided some laughs, but it's played so badly and broadly that any humor to be had just hangs itself in mid-air.
For this movie to really work, you have to be 100% on Mulligan's wavelength (not "side"), yet the script doesn't give her enough exposition to make that connection early on.
Mulligan plays Cassie, a thirty-year-old med school drop-out who is on the edge of either a complete psychotic break or on the verge of a recovery. She kills time by verbally and emotionally terrorizing (would-be?) rapists (or just horny creeps) on the weekend at various clubs. We are never given any real information about what she's actually "doing" to these literal HUNDREDS of men. It's vaguely implied that in some cases, the retributions are violent. While I understand that Fennell doesn't want this film to become an "I Spit On Your Grave" hack fest, the obscurity only makes Mulligan's character harder to get a handle on, and to ultimately understand, until the film's last half hour. I don't want to say IDENTIFY with, as in "like"... I don't need to "like" a protagonist, but Cassie is too much of an enigma, at times almost a schizophrenic one (but she's not playing as a schizo or borderline personality here).
When this movie works, it's gripping, intense, emotional, gratifying. But then afterward you have another scene that feels incredibly contrived, as when Cassie confronts a lawyer, who (unconvincingly) bursts immediately into tears of remorse... prompting HER to cry as well...???? What did I miss? Ditto the scene where she's head-on-a-steering-wheel traumatized following her confrontation with her former med school dean, and then goes into Ms .45 mode, wielding a tire iron.
Sometimes the strength of the actors stranded in these oddball scenes --- many of which simply don't make sense or stretch plausibility to the point of distraction --- can mask the deficiency somewhat. For example, Alison Brie is fine as always, but would her character REALLY stick around Cassie's house after Cassie admits to having set her up to "imagine" she'd been raped... and then turn over collateral for her to continue her rampage. And where does Cassie find all these rent-a-thugs? At the boutique coffee shop she works at? These sorts of plot devices break any spell that Mulligan and Fennell have worked (slavishly) hard to achieve.
I actually watched this twice because I did enjoy the last half the movie and wasn't sure if maybe the tonal shifts and logic gaps were something I was projecting onto the film. But no, I actually only found more plot holes.
Promising Young Woman is still a very unique watch, and worth your time, but it's a rough ride and not an entirely captivating or satisfying one. In the end, I wish Fennell had got off the post and made more hard choices that really defined Cassie. I can't say I really knew or understood her.
Its biggest problems lie in its off-the-charts tonal shifts (particularly in the first half of the film). Some scenes aim for thrills and deliver, other aim for laughs and fail. The second pick-up scene, early in the film, is a good example, where the sheer dorkiness of Mulligan's hipster mark should have provided some laughs, but it's played so badly and broadly that any humor to be had just hangs itself in mid-air.
For this movie to really work, you have to be 100% on Mulligan's wavelength (not "side"), yet the script doesn't give her enough exposition to make that connection early on.
Mulligan plays Cassie, a thirty-year-old med school drop-out who is on the edge of either a complete psychotic break or on the verge of a recovery. She kills time by verbally and emotionally terrorizing (would-be?) rapists (or just horny creeps) on the weekend at various clubs. We are never given any real information about what she's actually "doing" to these literal HUNDREDS of men. It's vaguely implied that in some cases, the retributions are violent. While I understand that Fennell doesn't want this film to become an "I Spit On Your Grave" hack fest, the obscurity only makes Mulligan's character harder to get a handle on, and to ultimately understand, until the film's last half hour. I don't want to say IDENTIFY with, as in "like"... I don't need to "like" a protagonist, but Cassie is too much of an enigma, at times almost a schizophrenic one (but she's not playing as a schizo or borderline personality here).
When this movie works, it's gripping, intense, emotional, gratifying. But then afterward you have another scene that feels incredibly contrived, as when Cassie confronts a lawyer, who (unconvincingly) bursts immediately into tears of remorse... prompting HER to cry as well...???? What did I miss? Ditto the scene where she's head-on-a-steering-wheel traumatized following her confrontation with her former med school dean, and then goes into Ms .45 mode, wielding a tire iron.
Sometimes the strength of the actors stranded in these oddball scenes --- many of which simply don't make sense or stretch plausibility to the point of distraction --- can mask the deficiency somewhat. For example, Alison Brie is fine as always, but would her character REALLY stick around Cassie's house after Cassie admits to having set her up to "imagine" she'd been raped... and then turn over collateral for her to continue her rampage. And where does Cassie find all these rent-a-thugs? At the boutique coffee shop she works at? These sorts of plot devices break any spell that Mulligan and Fennell have worked (slavishly) hard to achieve.
I actually watched this twice because I did enjoy the last half the movie and wasn't sure if maybe the tonal shifts and logic gaps were something I was projecting onto the film. But no, I actually only found more plot holes.
Promising Young Woman is still a very unique watch, and worth your time, but it's a rough ride and not an entirely captivating or satisfying one. In the end, I wish Fennell had got off the post and made more hard choices that really defined Cassie. I can't say I really knew or understood her.