Thread by @cmclymer

I watched an advance screener of "Promising Young Woman" today, starring Carey Mulligan as Cassie Thomas, a med school dropout who exacts revenge against rapists and sexual assailants, and it's one hell of a film. Here are many thoughts on it. (thread)

Right off the bat, I should say that the film graphically references, describes, and depicts rapes and sexual assaults and also suicide. In case the trailer hadn't been direct enough about that, consider this a trigger warning. It is DEEPLY uncomfortable to watch in some parts.

The film opens up with three younger guys at a happy hour engaged in, uh, "locker room talk". Well, two of the three. The third is the apparent moral center of the scene, played perfectly by Adam Brody. He's the Nice Guy. He chides the other two.

When the three turn their attention to Mulligan's Cassie, who appears to be incredibly drunk and alone, Brody's character moves to get her home safely. Except, on their ride share, he asks the driver to divert to his place. It's pretty clear where this is going.

As Brody's character gets Cassie more inebriated, the Nice Guy persona fades fast. He drags her to bed. He does things without her consent. Cassie, who had been acting blackout drunk up to this point, suddenly appears entirely sober and Brody's character realizes he's caught.

In the next scene, Cassie is walking back to her apartment at daylight, casually eating a donut, with what appears to be Brody's blood speckled on her clothes. The implication is that she's killed him. Back at her place, she records her latest kill in a small notebook.

It's clear from the get-go that Cassie is fearless, or perhaps, simply has nothing left to lose. We learn that her best friend Nina was raped in med school, leading both to dropout, Cassie taking care of her. Nina ultimately kills herself. Cassie is clearly out for revenge.

Those are the twin subplots: Cassie's efforts to flush out predatory men in her area before they hurt more women and her plan to exact revenge on all those complicit in the cover-up of Nina's rape in med school and her subsequent suicide.

Writer-Director Emerald Fennell clearly wants viewers to walk away with two important messages. The first is that rapes and sexual assaults aren't likely to happen in dark alleys by strangers so much as by those in our lives who we are conditioned to trust, which is true.

Adam Brody's character is the prototypical Nice Guy who pulls off the mask behind closed doors. This theme is driven home throughout the movie: Cassie's targets are "nice boys" who do horrible things to women who thought they could trust them. Because that's real life.

Fennell's second message is that the system, even--and especially--in its performative nature, is rigged against women who are raped and sexually assaulted. Yes, that point has been made countless times before but rarely as viscerally or as compelling when in Fennell's hands.

Systems of accountability are far more concerned with protecting men--particularly young men--than getting justice for women. Don't ruin his life, she was drunk, they were kids, etc. -- any excuse will do. Fennell lays them all bare for what they really are: violent misogyny.

Dialogue throughout will be uncomfortably familiar. Here's one such exchange between Cassie and a rapist:

Him: “I was affected, too. It’s every guy’s worst nightmare, getting accused like that.”



Her: “Can you guess what every woman’s worst nightmare is?”

Here's another:

Him: “We were kids.”



Her: “If I hear that one more time.”

From college officials to community members to friends + family, Cassie clearly knows the game by now and has zero fucks left to give in ensuring accountability is had by all. It's debatable if there are any heroes among them. What's not debatable is that they'll all be wounded.

I'm trying to be vague enough so as not to give anything away, but the most compelling moments of the film are when Fennell holds up a mirror to the viewer that strips the obfuscations and rhetorical niceties about rape that are so often weaponized by people we're told to trust.

The people in this film who the viewer is told to trust repeatedly betray Cassie and Nina and us. Even when confronted undeniably with their moral failings, they still seem to be only concerned with their pain and their suffering, not their direct complicity.

You will be angry watching this film, but you may also laugh. Fennell drops scenes intended to be humorous all throughout the script, even the most troubling moments, daring us to guffaw in the at our most vulnerable. Some will find this brilliant, some will feel it trivializes.

This is an imperfect film because it tries to do too much, but could you really blame Fennell for packing the script? How often does a woman director get the chance to talk about something like this and all its nuances with this kind of platform? We're all the better for it.

One critique I offer w/ respect is that Laverne Cox has plenty of lines but also somehow feels underutilized. I found myself wishing Cox had been incorporated more fully into the script, that maybe points could have been made about the ongoing violence against Black trans women.

Another critique I offer--again, with respect--is that Cassie's justice seems a tad inconsistent. One rapist played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (McLovin from "Superbad") appears to be let go with a warning, I guess because she was somewhat coherent? It didn't sit well with me.

In Cassie's notebook, she has red and black tallies representing predatory men she's brought to accountability. Red apparently means killed and black means warned. It's a little confusing what merits a red tally mark. Maybe that's the point.

"Promising Young Woman" wholly delivers in what it set out to do: make us squirm with the reminder that all of us knowingly live in a society that constantly communicates women's lives are worth less than men's reputations, that women are held accountable for the crimes of men.

It makes us ask questions so many would just as soon like to forget: how many "nice men" are predators? How many women have seen their lives destroyed so that men wouldn't have to be held accountable? These are dark questions that are all too often swept aside.

Give Emerald Fennell more projects. She has things to say, and they need to be said.

"Promising Young Woman" is in theaters on Christmas Day for those who can appropriately socially distance and will be available for streaming in the near future. /thread