She Stoops to Conquer

 Movies: A Promising Young Woman

I have been waiting to watch Emerald Fennell's A Promising Young Woman since April and I finally coughed up 20 bucks to rent it. I will provide two reviews below: a spoiler-free review at the top, followed by a lengthier spoiler-filled review below.

Spoiler-free:

Rape-revenge films are very, very tricky. They can so easily exploit survivors of rape and turn sexual assault into a spectacle for entertainment. One thing I will say about A Promising Young Woman--it is a film about rape that mercifully does not show the actual rape in question. That alone puts it at the top of a genre of films in which avenging angels make men (usually men) pay for their sins. 

Carey Mulligan plays Cassandra Thomas, a 30-year-old medical school drop out who lives with her parents (Jennifer Coolidge and Clancy Brown in excellent supporting roles) and works at a coffee shop (her boss is played by the wonderfully snarky Laverne Cox). Everyone is concerned for Cassie: she has no friends, no boyfriend, no plans to get a better job or move out of her childhood home. 

But little do they know that Cassie has a secret double life: every weekend she goes to sleazy bars, pretends to be falling down drunk, lets a "nice guy" offer to take her home, and--more times than not--allows the so-called good guy to nearly begin to have sex with her drunken body before she reveals that she is, in fact, sober. The film was worth 20 dollars for the look of wild animal fear and shame in Adam Brody's eyes when she reveals that the jig is up, and he has been outed as a potential rapist. 

After each encounter, Cassie records the man's name in a diary, along with a color-code for how far they went before she revealed her sobriety. There are dozens of names in her book.

Why does Cassie do this? Well, the reason she dropped out of medical school was to care for her friend, Nina, a fellow med student who was raped while tanked out her mind by a man named Al Munroe (Chris Lowell). Not only was she raped, but she was raped in front of a group of Al's friends who laughed and did nothing. Going to the dean didn't help, and Nina dropped the charges after being tormented and harassed by Al's defense lawyer. Eventually, Nina killed herself. After that, Cassie dedicated her entire life to avenging Nina--not through violence, but through the teaching of lessons to men who get away with everything. 

Cassie seems to turn a corner when she becomes re-acquainted with Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham, excellent in this role), a truly gentle man who was also in medical school with her and is now a pediatric surgeon. Cassie allows herself to be wooed by Ryan, and even begins to fall in love. But when Ryan reveals that not only is Al Munroe back in the States after living in London for many years, he is engaged to be married. Cassie cannot help but feel her thirst for revenge rise up again. And this time, blood will be spilled.

A Promising Young Woman is an inevitably divisive film for many reasons. It is a prickly film, a feel-bad (but in a way that feels oh-so-good) movie that doesn't follow the arc you THINK it will follow. Cassie is not a "hero" in the strictest sense: she truly stoops to her potential rapists' level, especially in the second half of the film. She does not play by the rules, and the "woke" among us who watch this film will NOT approve of her methods. 

But I saw A Promising Young Woman not as a guidebook on restorative justice, but as a *rape-revenge fantasy*, emphasis on the fantasy. A lot of what Cassie does would get her beaten and killed in real life. So, you can't watch this movie as if it takes place fully in our reality. If you watch it through the lens of a true fantasy, and not as a perfectly feminist little film, I think you'll enjoy what it has to offer much more. 

It won't land well with everyone, that's for sure. But for me, this poison-filled cupcake of a film was exactly the treat I needed given the state of our society right now.

Grade: A

***

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!

***

So, I actually went into A Promising Young Woman knowing a huge plot twist, which was revealed on Twitter to show that the movie isn't "feminist" or "empowering". Well, it's actually a couple of twists: firstly, as part of Cassie's revenge on everyone involved in Nina's rape, she goes out of her way to make two women believe they have been the victims of rape. In the first case, she meets an old friend from med school, Madison McPhee (played perfectly by Alison Brie), for lunch. Madison didn't believe Nina back in the day, and when Cassie brings it up at lunch, Madison insists that it was Nina's fault for getting drunk. Cassie then proceeds to encourage Madison to get drunk herself, and pays a strange man to put Madison to bed in a hotel room and "look after her". Although it is later revealed that this man doesn't touch Madison, Cassie allows Madison to believe she was raped to "teach her a lesson". 

Then, Cassie punishes the Dean of her medical school (played by Connie Britton) by figuring out who her daughter is, picking her up from school, and taking her to a diner where the daughter believes she's going to meet her favorite boy band. She then goes and has a meeting with the Dean (under a false name) and gets the Dean to admit that when Nina came to her for help, the Dean believed Al over Nina and refused to end the career of a "promising young man" over the rape accusation. Cassie then allows the Dean to believe that she took her daughter to those very same men, along with a few bottles of vodka. The Dean flips her shit, wild with fear for her daughter. Of course, Cassie did no such thing--her daughter is safe, enjoying a soda at a diner.

The criticism these scenes (which are pretty fucking far-fetched. Again, this is a *rape revenge fantasy*) get is that Cassie puts other women in harms way to make her point. But my take is: so what? Maybe women (and men) who are rape apologists DO deserve to learn what it's like to feel vulnerable. Cassie isn't claiming to be a feminist or a friend of all women. Her entire drive is revenge. Just as Beatrix Kiddo is gender-blind in her quest for vengeance in the Kill Bill films, so is Cassie. What I think people get wrong about this movie is thinking that it's supposed to be feminist in a way that we might describe as "politically correct"--i.e. 100% empowering of women, with a happy ending where justice is served in a way that is palatable to all. Sorry, but that's just not this movie. 

The final third of the movie is the most divisive of all. Cassie becomes aware that Nina's rape was filmed (thank god, we don't see the film). She is devastated to learn that nice-guy Ryan was there, in the room, cheering on Al as he raped an unconscious woman. She blackmails Ryan into telling her where Al's bachelor party is taking place, and she arrives, dressed as nurse, with a bottle of roofied vodka. 

After drugging his pals and handcuffing Al to a bed, she tells Al that her name is "Nina Fisher" and that she wants him to admit what he did. Of course, Al cannot do this, as no man who has raped a woman can TRULY admit what he's done (at least in the world of the movie). Cassie pulls out a scalpel and prepares to pull a Lisbeth Salander and carve Al's sins into his own flesh. But in a twist, he breaks free of the cuffs and smothers Cassie with a pillow. We don't see a rape in this movie, but we do see a prolonged act of murder (or self-defense, if you know, you're on the side of a rapist). The next morning, Al's buddy, Joe (Max Greenfield, playing a dumbass asshole excellently here) tells him it's not his fault and helps him burn Cassie's body.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!!

It turns out that Cassie sent not only the video, but the information about the bachelor party, to ex-defense lawyer Jordan Green (Alfred Molina, always a treat). In an earlier scene, when Cassie visited Green to most likely murder him, Green revealed that he welcomed being punished by her, and not in a sexy way. He had an epiphany, quit lawyering, and has spent his days trying to make amends for all the ways he destroyed women's lives by defending their rapists. Good to his word, Green gives the information to the cops, and Al is arrested at his own wedding reception for Cassie's murder. It's also clear that Ryan will pay the piper for his role in the rape as well, as the tape reveals all. She had to die to achieve it, but Cassie got her revenge.

Now, you can see why people had a problem with this ending. People were PISSED that Cassie had to die in order for a man to get his comeuppance. However, I submit the following evidence that, again, this isn't meant to be a movie that 100% takes place in the real world:

1) Cassie goes home dozens of times with would-be rapists. But she is never beaten or killed by any of these men. 

2) Cassie allows a woman to believe she was raped and another woman to believe she kidnapped her daughter and threw her to a group of rapey men. Neither woman presses charges.

3) It just so happens that the defense lawyer who defended Al not only turned a corner, but it happy to release the evidence Cassie sent him.

4) There is no man in this film (except for Cassie's dad) who isn't a rapist/potential rapist/rape-adjacent. This is shocking, but there are in fact men in the world who not only haven't raped anyone, but would not stand by and watch their friend rape someone. I mean, maybe it's fewer men than we'd like, but they do exist.

This evidence supports my theory that A Promising Young Woman was not made to be an instruction manual for women who want revenge. If you want a story of real life heroines who brought a rapist to justice, please read this excellent long form journalism piece which was the basis for the Netflix series Unbelievable. The detectives who solved this case are *real* heroes who perhaps we *should* emulate. Cassie is as fictional as Beatrix Kiddo and is not someone I would recommend emulating unless you want to be murdered by some rando in a bar.

A Promising Young Woman is, in my opinion, an excellent film that allows us a fantasy of true revenge, which is a nasty business. Revenge is not justice, and it is not "right". It is a visceral, animal desire that lives in the pit of our stomachs and in our lizard brains. People who process rape kits and lead therapy sessions are the real heroes in real life. But Cassandra Thomas is the avenging angel who lives only in our wildest dreams.

Grade: A