Certification. 15
"Every week, I go to a club, I act like I'm too drunk to stand. And every week, a nice guy comes over to see if I'm ok."
The opening scene of Promising Young Woman is an uncomfortable watch. Entrapment by a character unconcerned about fairness, only revenge and the exposé of predatory behaviour and toxic misogyny. The switch from helpless, intoxicated victim to lucid, articulate accuser is startling.
Emerald Fennell's directorial debut is impressive. The writer-director richly deserved the 2021 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as the dialogue in Promising Young Woman is acerbic and slick. Emerald Fennell honed her craft as a writer (and executive producer) on Killing Eve, and it is difficult not to offer comparisons between the two.
The casting of Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman caused controversy when Vanity Fair magazine reviewed the film, and stated "Mulligan, a fine actress, seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale – Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her. Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag.”
This viewpoint couldn't be further from the truth. Carey Mulligan is not shackled by the confines of the English rose. In Promising Young Woman, admittedly playing against type, Carey Mulligan delivers a brilliant performance as the duplicitous sociopath hell-bent on revenge. She, like the film itself, is confident and bold.
Like any Shakespearean tragedy worth its salt, Promising Young Woman builds to an inevitable brutal and uncompromising conclusion that does not disappoint.
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