When I see those lists of words that lack an English equivalent – think words like schadenfreude or hygge – they often vocalize a concept I’d never really thought about. But the year 2020, with all of its mathematically and scientifically calculated misery that still caught us off guard at every turn, has me searching for a word that doesn’t seem to exist. We need a word for when something plays out in a way that makes perfect sense and somehow still manages to be surprising at the same time. And if that word existed, it would be the perfect adjective to describe Promising Young Woman.
Since that word doesn’t exist, I’ll do my best to provide some additional context. Promising Young Woman, written and directed by Emerald Fennell (she was a head writer on Killing Eve, but you might know her better as Camilla Shand on seasons 3 & 4 of The Crown) is essentially a tale of vengeance. If you weren’t looking for the shiny capes and clever monikers you might even confuse it for a superhero’s gritty origin story. And while it shocked me at almost every turn, it did so without ever once asking me to suspend my disbelief.
Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) is a medical-school dropout working at a coffee shop and living at home with her parents. At night, though, she puts on a mask: one of a woman who is so drunk she can barely stand. By assuming the identity of an intoxicated woman who is alone and in no place to consent, Cassie essentially sets a trap for criminals by using herself as bait. Throughout the film we get to understand Cassie’s motives for catching would-be nice guys who are all too ready to commit sexual assault if they believe they can get away with it. She also spreads her reach further throughout the film, identifying people who witness and enable sexual assault, and forcing them to confront their role in it.
She may not use spandex or shiny capes, but Fennell creates an aesthetic throughout her film through wardrobe and small flourishes that emphasize Cassie’s acute awareness of the bubblegum persona she’s created. Mulligan fully executes this plan to perfection, delivering one of the better performances of the year. She paints her nails in pastel colors, wears soft and inviting sweaters and clothes. Cassie’s wardrobe and lifestyle project an aura of someone who is young, playful, and perhaps even a bit naïve. It’s one of several tools, including the soundtrack, that Fennell uses to lure the audience into thinking they know who she is and what kind of movie they’re watching. Every 20-30 minutes of this film I thought I had its trajectory pegged, but it turned out to be one of the most surprising and unpredictable films I’ve seen in years.
That aura of soft femininity and naivety engendered by Cassie also has a flip side, which we see in the men in Promising Young Women. Just as not all heroes wear capes, not all criminals are masked strangers skulking in the dark. Most of the characters Cassie encounters project a strong “Nice Guy” aura: they use lines about the type of emotional connection they have with Cassie, and they pretend they’re different than the kind of person who would take advantage of her, right until they do. Unlike Cassie’s case, it’s not even an elaborate ruse or con: Fennell portrays these characters as people who truly think they are different from someone who would commit or enable rape.
Each one of these men behave as though they’ve become so used to living in the blurry lines of a wild night out and a traumatic one that they no longer see the line at all. Consent is tricky, there are so many gray areas, and so on and so on. Promising Young Woman’s super power, and what makes Fennell’s directorial debut so special, is its ability to cut through that bullshit.
In an interview, Fennell said the idea for this movie started with a small seed: the imagery of a man trying to take off a drunk woman’s clothes, and her slurring back: What are you doing? As the man persists, the woman says exactly the same words – What are you doing? – in a voice that indicates she’s stone cold sober. The man’s reaction to the sober question is a moment that so easily vocalizes what is criminal about these encounters, and proves that these men know exactly where the line is. They just choose to cross it anyway.
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