Review: Promising Young Woman

Carey Mulligan is a 30ish woman living with her parents (Jennifer Coolidge and Clancy Brown) and living a fairly aimless existence. At night she goes to bars, gets drunk, gets picked up by men who claim to be ‘nice guys’ (Adam Brody and Christopher Mintz-Plasse among them) but nonetheless clearly target a drunk woman to try to get what they want. However, there’s a lot more to this drunk woman than meets the eye. She’s got a very dark plan, a very dark purpose, and a dark reason in her past, a past that led to her suddenly dropping out of college. Bo Burnham turns up as a slightly awkward paediatric surgeon and casual acquaintance from Mulligan’s past whom Mulligan starts to warm to. Alison Brie is another face from Mulligan’s past, Alfred Molina is a lawyer, whilst Molly Shannon plays the mother of an old friend of Mulligan’s, and Laverne Cox plays a friendly co-worker at Mulligan’s crappy job.

 

Boasting a topical premise that could’ve played itself out far too quickly in lesser hands, this 2021 effort from debut writer-director Emerald Fennell (who is apparently an actress) thankfully has more tricks up its sleeve. A seriously dark, comedically skewed film with a message, it has much more to say than just ‘men suck’. It certainly does show some awful and frankly criminal behaviour (or intentions) from its several male characters. However, there’s more to it than that, whilst still not letting any creepy male off the hook, either. Here’s a film that takes aim at several targets on issues of rape, consent, turning a blind eye (including women, I might add), and ‘nice guys’ who really aren’t. Perhaps most interestingly, it’s even willing to have its main character do some really horrible things in order to make its very valid points. It’s a good film and maybe even a little brave in risking alienating the audience from the main character. Indeed you may find yourself not quite on the main character’s side even if you agree with the general message. And oddly enough, it won’t necessarily lessen the impact of the film for you. At least it didn’t for me. Fennell wants us to wake the fuck up about these important issues, so there’s no tip-toeing here at all (despite ‘rape’ never being verbally mentioned in the film, interestingly).

 

Carey Mulligan is immediately perfect, and despite what one unnamed idiot critic might think, she’s ten times as well-cast in the role as Margot Robbie would’ve been. Don’t get me wrong, Robbie’s done some fine work as an actress (and serves as producer here), but I think she might’ve played this character more broadly than the far more subtle Mulligan does. As much as this has a black comedy tone, Mulligan manages to give the role – and the film – some real gravitas and reality. She creates a real character, so that the film isn’t all message, there’s some life and blood in there, too. A real character for us to invest ourselves in – like her or not – and as a result, invest in the story and issues. Mulligan was deservingly nominated for an Oscar here, losing out to the also terrific Frances McDormand in “Nomadland”. I liked both films but I think this is the stronger and more interesting of the two and certainly an equally good performance. Mulligan is backed up here by a sterling cast of familiar faces. Jennifer Coolidge and the versatile Clancy Brown are rock-solid as Mulligan’s parents, and comedian Bo Burnham is a good choice as a former schoolmate of Mulligan’s who may be a rare ‘nice guy’ who really is nice. Burnham has been openly critical of his own stand-up material, offensive terms used in the name of ‘comedy’, which is either honest or shrewd on his part, or a combination of both. All I can say of him here is that he is a good choice for the role based on his performance in the film. Adam Brody is pitch-perfect casting as one of the fake ‘nice guys’, and a coke-snorting Christopher Mintz-Plasse does a great job as a total creepy fucker who definitely isn’t nice.

 

Outside of Mulligan, the best performances here come from Alfred Molina (curiously uncredited), Molly Shannon, and Connie Britton. The very versatile Molina is interestingly cast as a guy genuinely haunted and remorseful for his part in excusing poor behaviour. It’s a great scene as Mulligan’s character has no idea how to react to this guy’s genuine remorse. Shannon is terrific in a mere cameo here as a face from Mulligan’s past. An excellent Britton deserves credit for playing one of the least likeable female characters in the film, a wholly ineffective college dean who gets taught a very cruel, very mean, but very important lesson by Mulligan. You won’t like Mulligan’s actions – they’re reprehensible – but so is turning a blind eye to sexual assault. I knew it was going to be timely and daring based on the premise, but there’s more going on than that. ***** SPOILER ALERT ***** I must admit that at first I was hoping the film would give us at least one genuine ‘nice guy’ here. It doesn’t, with Burnham turning out to be a creep too, one who even tries the ‘I was young!’ defence. However, I think that initial need of mine ends up outweighed by the importance of the issues at hand. These ‘nice guys’ aren’t nice and they need to be held accountable, as do their guilty enablers. Besides, Clancy Brown’s character is plenty nice enough I guess. ***** END SPOILER *****

 

I said earlier that the film is darkly comedic – to a very European degree actually – but ultimately I’d say the film is actually very sad. The main character in particular is greatly pained, a very sad individual. If there’s a flaw here, it’s that Fennell doesn’t stick the landing, which is a shame. I admire the unpredictable nature of it, but it’s too ‘cute’ and strains credibility. Apparently the film originally ended the scene before, and I actually would’ve preferred that as an ending to what we actually get here. Still, by then I was already won over anyway so it doesn’t ruin the film.

 

Despite having a bleakly funny tone, this is a sad and occasionally quite angry film with important things to say about issues that should make you angry. It’s extremely well-done on every level, though the ending doesn’t quite come off. Mulligan is outstanding and so are several of the supporting performances.

 

Rating: B-