Director: Emerald Fennell Cast: CareyMulligan, Bo Burnham, Laverne Cox, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Alison Brie Original title: Promising Young Woman Country: USA, UK Year: 2020 Release date: 04-16-2021 Genre : Drama Script: Emerald Fennell Photography: Benjamin Kracun Synopsis: Everyone thought Cassie was a very promising young woman … until the day a mysterious event derailed her future. But nothing in Cassie’s life is what it seems: she is a marvel of intelligence, her cunning knows no bounds, and she lives a double nightlife. Suddenly, an encounter will give Cassie a chance to correct what happened in the past in a story that is as moving as it is unexpected.
For fans of movies that shake, rage and are not left half.
A promising young woman is the story of a woman (Carey Mulligan), traumatized by a tragic event, who punishes potential sex offenders. Writer / director Emerald Fennell takes a lot of risk to compose this tale of trauma, abuse, and rape culture. And, with good reason, she is very angry: it may not be impossible, but it is very difficult to talk today about the things she talks about without indignation and anger. This combination of courage and anger is appreciated and necessary, but it is also a delicate cocktail. In A promising young woman, so intense, that cocktail overflows and causes some imbalances. The most striking, in tone: Fennell’s cross between drama and black comedy is destabilized at times. There are also some questionable decisions in history (they should not be revealed) that border on contradiction. However, it would be unfair to hold on to those flaws in a movie like this.
In recent years, several female directors have questioned rape and revenge in their films (a subgenre of horror that is exactly about that, of raped women who take revenge on their attackers) and have tried to deactivate it, reinvent it, shake it, break it. Good examples are Revenge (Coralie Fargeat, 2017), Amulet (Romola Garai, 2020) or M.F.A. (Natalia Leite, 2017). Of all, however, the one that has gone the furthest, to the point of reformulating the subgenre, is Fennell. There are many decisive decisions in A Promising Young Woman, highlighting the filmmaker’s ability to aesthetically reflect the universe (disturbingly and painfully childish) of a woman whose life, unfortunately, has long since stalled. But, of all the decisions that Fennell makes, the most important and valuable is the intelligence and ferocity with which he questions the idea of revenge as catharsis, much less as a cure. For the latter alone, A Promising Young Woman should not be underestimated.
