‘Promising Young Woman’ is a fantasy that wants to be seen as fearless
Focus
Just because the subject is important doesn’t mean the movie’s good. “Promising Young Woman,” which attempts to reckon with rape culture through retribution, is part of a long-overdue conversation that of course was advanced with the Me Too movement but still has a long way to go. The problem is that the film doesn’t add to the dialogue, only fan the flames.
(SPOILER ALERT: Details about the plot you may not want to know if you haven’t seen the film are included below.)
In other words, this is an issue that needs thoughtful action, but the film, the feature writing-directing debut for former “Killing Eve” showrunner Emerald Fennell, mostly leads with unexamined emotion. For example: Midway through the movie, Cassie (Carey Mulligan, great in everything) encounters Paul (Sam Richardson), a friend of Jerry, one of Cassie’s previous victims. Her game is this: Pretend to be horribly drunk, find a supposedly nice guy to take her home, wait for him to start undressing her as she mumbles that she needs to go home, and then snap into focus as the sober dispatcher of lessons about consent that she actually is. It is clear that Jerry told Paul what happened, but knowing the story didn’t impact Paul’s approach at all.
While it must must must be said that the problem in this world and with this issue obviously and undeniably lies with the perpetrators of sexual assault and rape, in this narrative Cassie should be evaluating the effectiveness of her mission. She seeks revenge because of a tragedy in her past, and of course it’s fair to recognize that her behavior is impacted by trauma. But movies, especially ones about important real-life issues, are still subject to logic and analysis. And not only could Cassie have reason to wonder if her efforts are working, it’s also hard to believe that putting herself in vulnerable situations alone in a stranger’s apartment, even being secretly sober, would never lead to any harmful consequences for her. In no way would that be her fault. But it is an aspect of this narrative that goes completely unexplored.
Similarly, even after Ryan (Bo Burnham), a former med school classmate of Cassie’s who she is now dating, makes an extremely shady move (essentially, “Oops, whaddayaknow, we’re at my apartment building, wanna come upstairs?”) she maintains interest in him. They both also move forward far too easily after Ryan runs into Cassie the night she almost goes home with Paul.
There have been numerous horror films that fight back against rapists. The world, and certainly American society specifically, still has much to learn about believing and supporting survivors, and prosecuting those responsible for the attacks. No one should see the moments in “Promising Young Woman” that call out the absurdity of protecting young men while being skeptical towards the women they hurt and feel anything less than rage. Victim blaming is terrible. Parents who don’t raise enlightened boys are terrible. And sadly Fennell is right that many people don’t care about something until it happens to them or someone close to them. (See the Lady Gaga song “Til It Happens to You,” which accompanied the far more informative and infuriating doc “The Hunting Ground.”)
But “Promising Young Woman” doesn’t seek to unravel rape culture or predatory bro culture or guilt or lack thereof, particularly with a terribly misjudged ending that aims for easy satisfaction instead of useful exploration. This is contrived, simplistic and hardly the first movie about the patriarchy or young women being seen as a sexual commodity (“Young and Beautiful,” to name just one, is worth catching up with.) It’s a pissed-off movie about a topic that we should all be pissed off about, but rather than uncover new components of grief, anger, aggression or understanding, or why people do what they do, it only achieves the odd labels of being both necessary and outdated, provocative and limited.
C
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