Ranking Women Revenge Movies I: ‘Promising Young Woman’ (2020)
[Content warning for mention of r*pe, suicide, and murder]
Spoilers ahead!
Not Twitter nor my most esteemed moviefriends could stop talking about it. Co-producer and writer Emerald Fennell’s directorial film debut, Promising Young Woman is a biting and moreishly witty black comedy thriller handling the weighty subject matter of micro- and macro-misogyny and how it breeds rape culture. Carey Mulligan is fantastic as the blunt and deeply likeable lead Cassie, and I’ll even say that Bo Burnham’s performance as Cassie’s love interest was so subtle and natural in this movie that I didn’t realise he was Bo Burnham until the credits. And, of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention Jennifer Coolidge giving very believable brunette suburban mother.
Cassie, changed and bitter following the sexual assault and suicide of her best friend Nina, lives a secret life baiting potential rapists who she attracts by acting black out drunk at bars and clubs. Again and again, we see the approach and tactics that many of us know too well — these men feign concern or offer to give her a ride home before attempting to take advantage, and willfully ignore Cassie’s clear displays of incoherence and lack of cognizance. The recurrence and predictability of the rapist behaviour is sickening in how familiar and plausible it feels — because it is. The kicker that made the movie so irresistible from the start was seeing the final step to Cassie’s rapist hunts; she drops the drunken act and scares the assailants into admitting the truth of their intentions. It was unclear, at least to me, whether she does anything to further punish them. I’ll headcanon that she killed or tortured some of them because that would just be nice.
Promising Young Woman lulled me into a sense of security. This was the feminist movie I’d been yearning for. Fennell recognises the need for anti-tragic female protagonists, I thought. Finally, we will see this woman we have no choice but to love find not only vengeance, but maybe even healing from her friend’s avoidable death. And then my hopes were dashed.
Cassie’s biggest motivation is finding the man who raped Nina, and got away with it scot-free (the kind of astonishing grace we have seen so many promising young men be afforded). While we root for her to enact her revenge against him, we’re also lead to recognise that Cassie’s obsession with avenging Nina has taken over her life. We know that she won’t feel the closure she thinks she will from punishing him, but we still desperately want to see him suffer.
Cassie makes her way right up until the expected climax when, in a truly horrific and stomach-dropping twist of events, he defends himself by smothering Cassie to death with a pillow. We’re given a long, nauseating scene of Cassie’s limp body laying next to him, and I remember believing with absoloute certainty that another twist was coming, and Cassie was feigning death so that he’d drop his guard before she would jump up and finish the job. That didn’t happen.
But there was still such a big chunk of the movie left, I thought. Of course, her plan had her covered in ways revealed to us in the whirlwind ending following her death. I felt half satisfied. I felt like Fennell edged us all right to the brink of happiness before stomping on our hopeful little hearts. Don’t misunderstand me — this movie was a gem, and Fennell stomped expertly. Objectively, the fact that it got so deep under my skin that I started a film review series just so I could talk about it is testament to its weight. But the ending.
My gripe feels specific but my jury is still somewhat out, so expect some flipflopping in my review here. My first issue is with the way my hand was taken and I was lead to feel excited about how different the movie was. It definitely isn’t a happy-clappy story, but Cassie is doing right by herself. We need movies like that. I’ve had my fill of women characters dying or losing their own game. In a sense, this is an ending I’d expect from a less off-beat and aware movie. In another sense, this is absoloutely the ending that an off-beat movie would throw right at our heads like a rock. The reality of a patriarchal system, one built to protect rapists and apathetic men, will give you a pit in your stomach. It will make you feel hard done by, and like things are unfair beyond comprehension. It will make you feel the way Cassie’s end does — we mourn her like we mourn something or someone else every day.
So here are the two sides of the coin: heads, the ending crushes our dreams for Cassie because our dreams are supposed to be crushed. It is a culmination and symbol of a system working against a woman, a real system. I think the audience is meant to feel how I felt; we’re meant to be angry at being robbed. We’re robbed alongside Cassie. It is the final example of the impossibility of true vengeance when rape culture is as prolific and legislated as it is.
Tails, this movie created its own potential as a hall of fame revenge movie by subverting the clichés and hitting the marks missed by so many women revenge stories before it. It was aware without being ham-fisted. The plot was gritty, but it was refreshing. I felt completely, 100% secure in the ending following suit with this. So, when the ending felt like a slap in the face to all of the subversion it had done, I was desperately confused and disappointed. “Really?” I thought. “After all that, she dies? She does the shitty movie thing and dies?”. I understand why she died and the meaning therein, but I feel like it created a missed opportunity. This could have been The female revenge movie, if Cassie had just been allowed what she deserved. She wasn’t given that, on purpose. But man would it have served as such a hopeful reward to an audience who needed it if she had been.
FINAL RULING:
Promising Young Woman undeniably succeeds at what I read as its central message. Women and femmes, we are dealt a tough fucking deal on a systematic level. It’s inescapable, but we’re left with a glimmer of hope at Cassie’s end. This movie heartbreakingly conveys what it set out to. Like I said, it’s a gem.
That being said, does it succeed as a female revenge movie? I’m sad to say it, but no. To all those who recommended it to me by saying it was the best female revenge movie they’d ever seen, you guys suck. Promising Young Woman even earns two strikes from me according to the rubric laid out in my introductory post. Strike one: there are unnecessarily long (like…really long) and explicit scenes of sexual assault, which, given what I assume to be its intended audience, I found confusing. Strike two: hello? Cassie dies, and we are given what felt like a consolation prize as her revenge.
It’s a lovely, shocking, pull-the-rug-out-from-under-you movie that left me thinking hard for days after I watched it. Visually it’s stunning, and every shot felt deeply intentional. I recommend it, but not for satisfying the vengeance that this review series is looking for.
