Promising Young Woman (2020)

Directed by: Emerald Fennell | 108 minutes | crime, drama | Actors: Carey Mulligan, Adam Brody, Ray Nicholson, Sam Richardson, Timothy E. Goodwin, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Alli Hart, Loren Paul, Scott Aschenbrenner, Bo Burnham, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Alison Brie, Gabriel Oliva Bryan Lillis, Francisca Estevez, Lorna Scott, Connie Britton, Casey Adams, Vince Lozano, Molly Shannon, Max Greenfield, Chris Lowell, Mike Horton, Steve Monroe, Angela Zhou, Austin Talynn Carpenter

Carey Mulligan (‘An Education’) plays a young woman who seems to be the victim of date rape in ‘Promising Young Woman’. A drunk woman alone in a nightclub, who asks for it, says a man to his friends. One of them asks Cassie if it’s going well and takes her home in a taxi. On the way, she agrees to go to his apartment for a drink. You already know where it’s going; not to heaven.

The inaction of the drunkenness has been played very well; so convincing that it reminds you of the fact that as a man you simply shouldn’t try anything in such a situation. In fact, even a gallant offer from a stranger to take you home is better for a woman in such a situation to refuse. And yet this film manages to make you think, about a mistake that was made like this, and so on.

Anyone who, after seeing the opening scenes, thinks that the man in question cannot be blamed is disqualified. Don’t ask a woman so drunk that she can’t come home on her own for a ‘romantic’ get-together. Especially not if you don’t know her. any more? In fact, these are only the opening scenes of ‘Promising Young Woman’, and the viewer has been misled by genre as it turns out, and not for the last time.

In a way, it’s a relief that this movie is trying to be a black comedy, at least it’s a shock. The film refers to ‘Lolita’ and ‘Trainspotting’; ‘Promising Young Woman’ is not very subtle, and stereotyping is lurking. However, Mulligan manages to dose enough in her cynical mirror role of ‘sexually educational nemesis’. In a film that deals with an ever-current theme. Whether it’s Oscar-worthy, we’ll leave to the Academy members.