If revenge is a dish best served cold, then Carey Mulligan’s Cassie Thomas leaves dry ice in her wake.
Cunning, calculating and crafty as if borne to treachery, Mulligan’s Academy Award-nominated performance is a marvelous display of graceful subtlety: something at which she always has excelled. She’s both hero and anti-hero, drifting from one side of that fence to the other, enchanting us just as much as she (ultimately) terrorizes her victims.
Cassie (Carey Mulligan) still hasn't quite decided how to handle Ryan (Bo Burnham),
but there's no denying his ability to have spontaneous fun in an unlikely setting.
All of which is delivered with ghoulish glee by Emerald Fennell, also Oscar-nominated for both directing and concocting this deviously nasty dark-dark-dark comedy. It’s available via Amazon Prime and other streaming services.
We meet Cassie under lamentable circumstances: dressed to kill but just this side of dangerously intoxicated, makeup askew and swaying slowly while trying to remain upright on the sofa in a trendy bar. Easy prey for a trio of good-looking guys on the make (Adam Brody, Ray Nicholson and Sam Richardson).
One — seemingly the “compassionate fellow” — separates from the pack, solicitously asks if she’s all right, chuckles sympathetically at her efforts to sound coherent. Offers to take her home, brings her to his place instead. Laughs off her slurred, wavery protests. He gets increasingly, ah, fresh.
Benjamin Kracun’s camera rises above this scene, tightens focus on Cassie’s face. Her drowsy eyes abruptly snap into full awareness.
And we think Uh-oh…
Returning home, Cassie withdraws a small notebook from a place of concealment, flips through pages and pages and pages of red and black hash marks, reaches the page in progress, and adds a vertical red line.
And we think Yikes!
Fennell’s Promising Young Woman is the ultimate #MeToo statement. It’s a righteously angry response to an appalling situation — campus rape — that has been ignored, concealed or denied for far too long. What’s most impressive is that Fennell refrains from preaching; despite the awfulness of what occurs here — and of what occurred years earlier — her film remains … well … entertaining. Amusing, even.
This diabolical revenge saga will be catnip for folks outraged by individuals who trade on their entitlement: such as Judge Aaron Persky, who sentenced convicted Stanford University student Brock Turner — who raped an unconscious 22-year-old woman — to a mere six-month jail term, because he “didn’t want to ruin the young man’s future” (clearly not giving a tinker’s dam for how Turner had ruined his victim’s future).
Persky became the first California judge to be recalled in 86 years. (And don’t let the door slam on your way out.)
Oh, if only Cassie Thomas could have been in that courtroom…
But that’s actually leading the witnesses … which is to say, you viewers. The delectable allure of Fennell’s script is the degree to which we speculate, make assumptions, and get steered down unexpected paths.
Along with the nuanced shading of Mulligan’s performance.
Although Cassie derives insidious glee from her activities — in the moment — elsewhere she’s a lost, desperately unhappy soul. Stuck. Content to while away her days making lattes with coffee shop colleague Gail (Laverne Cox), the closest Cassie has to a friend. Mulligan’s silent, stoic gaze is realms beyond grief, overwhelmed by rage and heartbreak.
She still lives at home, much to the consternation of her mother Susan (Jennifer Coolidge), who drops a not-at-all-subtle hint by giving Cassie a darling pink suitcase for her 30th birthday. Dad Stanley (Clancy Brown), more sensitive to what troubles his daughter, is patient … but equally unhappy.
The dynamic shifts one day when Ryan (Bo Burnham) wanders into the coffee shop. He’s pleasant, affable, flirty; he and Cassie banter briefly, but he’s no match for her caustic, icy attitude. Even so, the banter is beguiling; Fennell’s dialogue is crisp and choice, and Burnham’s delivery — deliberately straight-faced — is hilarious.
He’s a genuinely nice guy; kindness radiates from him. But Cassie can’t process “nice”; she has spent years viewing men as nothing but predators. She brushes him off; he persists.
At roughly this point, Cassie’s “campaign” takes an abrupt left turn: from random to specific. Something has catalyzed her behavior. Fennell marks this shift with large pink Roman numerals that briefly appear over the screen, as the narrative proceeds: I … II … and so forth.
Very few films are able to maintain levels of curiosity, suspense and intrigue for such a length of time. We simply cannot look away, fascinated by what is going down, half-dreading what could (should?) happen next.
British-born Mulligan can’t really be called a “promising young actress” any more. She has arrived — and then some — with a thoroughly impressive string of starring performances since her breakout film role in 2009’s An Education (not to mention having been a blazing presence in one of the best-ever Doctor Who episodes, 2007’s “Blink”).
Her work here matches the subtle, heartbreaking shading she delivered in 2010’s Never Let Me Go, likely to remain one of the most chilling “predictive future” stories ever written.
On a trivial note, costume designer Nancy Steiner dresses Cassie in the best sweater tops.
Burnham is a stitch; there’s no other word for him. He charms, wheedles and aw-shucks to perfection in every scene. The “spontaneous song and dance in an unlikely place” montage has been done to death in movies, and yet Burnham and Mulligan make it fresh when Ryan, still trying to woo Cassie, starts crooning and grooving to Paris Hilton’s “Stars Are Blind” in a drugstore, while patrons and counter clerks watch with a blend of wariness and admiration.
Cox is low-key terrific as Gail: the epitome of a friend who displays patience, doesn’t push, and yet unerringly inserts a perceptive comment or question at just the right moment. Coolidge, sadly, has overworn her “dumb bunny” image; planting that tag on Susan, here, seems unfair. Brown is much better, as the calm, tolerant but clearly forlorn Stanley: helpless to save his lost daughter.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse feels like a calculated celebrity cameo, relying on his signature nerdish fluster as one of Cassie’s coke-laced victims.
Fennell’s use of music is a bit annoying, particularly during the first 15 minutes; the twitchy pop tunes overwhelm on-screen events. But things soon settle down, and subsequent songs become telling and ironic counterpoints to where Cassie is heading.
As for where that is … well, some viewers may be dismayed by how Fennell concludes this sordid saga. But it’s certainly in character.
Just watched this movie tonight and very much enjoyed your review and all insights.
ReplyDelete