And with scheduled texts going out, sending the video to everyone, it seems like justice prevails. She’s guarded, completely strict. The walk of shame, not knowing who you slept with the night before, it was accepted and part of raunch culture. Benedict Cumberbatch Addresses WandaVision Cameo Disappointment, Promising Young Woman's Horrific Ending Isn't as Triumphant as We Think, Servant: Everything You Need to Know for Season 2. What drives her is the fate of her best friend, Nina, who is never seen on-screen. YOLO. It just doesn't sit right that the #MeToo champion gets killed while the offenders live on. And if you’re on a reckless, addictive cycle of wanting to release tension, that seemed to me like quite a plausible thing. It’s why women don’t ever try to be violent. Silence is complicity, so an enraged Cassie reprimands and extracts info from him on the bachelor party Al (the key rapist) is throwing and infiltrates days later as a sexy nurse. I'm a former Chemical Engineer. She actually wants to just fucking let go so she can have a rest, but no one will admit that something happened. These guys are not the obvious creeps and villains. Tiny Pretty Things: Season 1's Most Shocking Plot Holes, Explained, Why Superman & Lois Is the Best Superhero Show on TV, Jennifer Garner Is Ready to Sign on to an Alias Reboot, Star Trek: Why There Are So Few Vulcans in The Next Generation, Falcon and Winter Soldier Clip Reveals [SPOILER] is the New Captain America, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Sets S3 Release Date With Ominous, Carnivorous Teaser, The Good Place: Every Season, Ranked by Critics, Justice League #59 Kicks Off the Team's Infinite Frontier Era, Deadpool Nerdy 30 Rings In His 30th Anniversary with Style, Children of the Atom #1 Introduces the Next Generation of Mutant Superheroes, Non-Stop Spider-Man #1 Lives Up to Its Title With an Action-Packed Debut, Wonder Woman: Earth One Vol. If you see it, and acknowledge it, and apologize, then no harm done. It refuses to glorify the revenge tale, refuses to fall into the trope of there being one good ânice guyâ whoâs not like the others, and finally, refuses to offer viewers an easy catharsis on an issue for which there is no easy solution. WARNING: This story contains major spoilers for the ending of Promising Young Woman. In closing, let me remind you that the geek shall inherit the Earth. Promising Young Woman definitely goes after toxic masculinity in a big way, making bold statements as Carey Mulligan's Cassie unravels a plot to avenge her dead friend, Nina. And her whole life is about control. Yet in âPromising Young Woman,â while Cassie does suffer consequences for her actions, there is no dialogue about the specific consequences of assuming what Nina wants. She didn’t do anything. Cassie (Carey Mulligan) was once a promising young woman in med school, then when her best friend Nina is raped at a party and the school took no action, Nina and Cassie both dropped out. Except the lawyer, and that’s really important. Her assailant got off, and the lives of these promising young men were kept intact, while Nina was left to fall apart. The principal protagonist, CassandraâCassieâ Thomas (Carey Mulligan), is the person that the name is speaking to, along with her late friend Nina. The thing we’re used to seeing, which is somebody going to people’s houses and beating them up, torturing them, murdering them? The rape-revenge thriller has a long and somewhat seedy Hollywood history. Promising Young Woman has been described as a revenge thriller, and the "thrill" of such movies is supposed to be in watching the comeuppance for the perpetrator(s). It was boring so I decided to write about things I love. It’s why we don’t ever try to be violent. Yup, sounds about right. She quit school. Because how would any of us react? i can see why some hate it and why some love it, and after hours of reflection i've come to the earth-shattering conclusion that... i liked it! It is crucial to the story of âPromising Young Womanâ that guilt is not limited to Ninaâs rapistâindeed, it is nearly ubiquitous, shared by all of the movieâs male characters. That’s not to say it’s not incredibly devastating and grueling to watch. I think the control that she shows is quite remarkable, and it’s important that you see the repercussions. There’s a reason that she smashes up someone’s car after that scene with Dean Walker [Connie Britton], because she’s not just angry. âPromising Young Womanâ Isnât Some Far-Fetched Revenge FantasyâIt Shows How I Felt After My Own Experience Cassieâs anger consumed her and controlled her life. That shocks her, because it’s very rare that people do what he does. Every product on this page was chosen by a Harper's BAZAAR editor. All the latest gaming news, game reviews and trailers. Al and his buddy, Joe, end up burning her body, but she had a contingency plan. Lawyers were hired. Like Connie Britton and Alison Brie as well, these are people that we like. It’s not that she sacrificed or martyred herself, I don’t think that’s true, but she knew if she was going down, she was going to fucking take them down too. He just doesn’t realize he’s the only person in it.” I wanted all of these people Cassie confronts to come into it believing they’re a good person. I think for a while, I’d been wanting to make a revenge movie about female rage, and to take the revenge trope and put a real woman at the center, with the physical limitations that most women have. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io, 'House of Gucci': Everything You Need to Know, 'Killing Eve' Will End with Season 4 Next Year, 'The Queen's Gambit' Will Soon Be A Musical, How to Watch the Oscar-Nominated 'Minari' at Home, Merie Weismiller Wallace / Focus Features. Promising Young Woman is the prime example of a film that very much needed to be made in today's day in age, but I wasn't expecting it to take things as far as it did. Because it goes wrong. Yeah, she’s meticulous about everything—about everything she wears, about how she presents herself, about how she speaks. The final approach, which seems to be done to draw extra sympathy, isn't well-executed and leaves Cassie's crusade short-sold and veers a bit too much into dark comedy territory when the finale should have been taken a bit more seriously. Below, Fennell digs deep with BAZAAR.com into that disturbing ending, the psychology behind Cassie’s “lessons,” and making a realistic movie about female vengeance. We’re used to the idea of a violent journey, but I wanted to look at how a real woman might take revenge, and I had an idea that it would be kind of tricky and malevolent and existentially threatening, rather than something more run-of-the-mill and AK-47 based. With the one-sided kiss between Adam Brody and Carey Mulligan, there’s something so extra horrifying about it, because Adam is such a heartthrob. When it comes to Cassie as a character, I love her and respect her, but she’s not necessarily nice. She just talked and implied things. But I’m a masochistic monster, so I like that kind of stuff! I also write about music in terms of punk, indie, hardcore and emo because well, they rock! But she’s wise enough and reckless enough to know that this, whatever happens here, either she’s going to jail or she needs to make a contingency plan. The only way to understand Promising Young Woman is to skip right to the ending. Cassie left key evidence with Jordan, a lawyer, so the cops piece everything together. Business-wise, I make big cheddar (not really) as a copywriter and digital strategist working with some of the top brands in the Latin America region. “I had an idea that [her revenge] would be kind of tricky and malevolent and existentially threatening, rather than something more run-of-the-mill and AK-47 based,” says Fennell, who’s best known as Camilla Parker Bowles in The Crown and as the showrunner of Killing Eve Season 2. In the final act, Cassie gets a video of Nina's gang rape and it's revealed Ryan looked on at the frat party. You know how the rest goes, because we see how it goes in the real world all the time. "It was the only ending that felt real to me," the director and writer tells BAZAAR.com. Frederick introduced the first-time film director and award-winning actress, who both joined the call from their respective homes in the UK. This isn't the case because as a white, privileged male, Al could escape conviction. 3 Closes Out the Epic Trilogy with a Bombastic Finish, Batman: Urban Legends #1 Expands on the Bat-Family's Infinite Frontier Adventures, King of the Hill Revival in ‘Hot Negotiations,’ Says Producer, HBO's 30 Coins Just Unleashed Its Two Most TERRIFYING Monsters, WandaVision: Scarlet Witch's Costume Detail Is a Tearful Tribute to Vision, South Park: QAnon Infiltrates and Almost Destroys the Vaccination Special, Wesley Snipes Recounts Auditioning for Star Trek: TNG's Geordi La Forge, Lucifer's Lesley-Ann Brandt Brought Maze's Blades Home for Practice, WandaVision Producer Encourages Fans to Rewatch the Show, Falcon and Winter Soldier Xbox Ad Reveals Thor's TRUE Endgame Nemesis, Why Agents of SHIELD Ended After Season 7, Star Trek: Why The Next Generation Allowed Families Aboard the Enterprise, Supergirl's Final Season Premiere Synopsis, Revealed, Futurama: How Becoming a Were-Car Proved Bender's Humanity. Following a sexual assault years ago, Nina dropped out of med school when no one believed her and eventually committed suicide. This is it—what’s more disturbing? This guy thinks he’s in a romantic comedy. But after Nina was raped while being under the influence of alcohol, they both dropped out. She dies. Promising Young Woman has an emotional ending that brings justice for sexual assault victims, but it's not as triumphant as we're led to assume. Promising Young Woman's all-star cast that includes Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Jennifer Coolidge, Clancy Brown, Max Greenfield, Laverne Cox and Alfred Molina. Promising Young Woman doesnât want you to feel comfortable.. There's also no guarantee he'd sell Joe out or the other rapists from back in the day, so the only people who suffer are the victims. There is none. In many ways, the movie tells you what it is right from the beginning. But by the time the movie ends, it seems like Cassie gets revenge on the perps; however, the horrific conclusion isn't as triumphant as it appears. What she does is kind of terrifying, because you can’t stick it on her. RELATED: The Undoing: Did Jonathan Ever Actually Love [SPOILER]? This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Here, it’s like, “Oh fuck, this guy thinks he’s in a romantic comedy. All the scumbags, whether in jail or alive, get to live on while ladies die as a result of the perpetrators' misogynistic ways and locker-room attitude. They’re the kind of people who think they’re good, and the audience comes in with an expectation that they’re good and trustworthy. And that’s what happens when you’re using. The movie focuses on Cassie (Carey Mulligan) as she spends her nights pretending to be drunk at bars and on private dates, all to lure guys in order to teach them a lesson when they try to rape her. Because you ruined my life.” What would any of us do? We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. Leite grapples with proclaiming oneself an avenging angel and what it means to take someone elseâs revenge into your own hands, but Fennell skirts over such issues to make Cassie seem like Ninaâs hero. Leading an uneventful existence, still living with her parents, waiting tables at a cheap coffee shop to earn a living, Cassie has found the perfect way to deal with the painful past. Promising Young Woman subverts expectations throughout, but nowhere more so than in its electric and harrowing ending, which sees Cassie finally going into the belly of the beast (a frat house) to confront Nina’s rapist, Al Monroe (Chris Lowell). And yes, I've written sports for them too! But the genre has its limitations. How would you react, if someone from 10 years ago knocked on your door and said, “Do you remember this thing? Many factors could play out with evidence and given he's a rich dude with resources, a happy ending isn't set in stone. That would be kind of the opposite of the film I wanted to make. Really, she does nothing. It had to feel that uncomfortable. But it’s very much independent, and got done by the skin of our teeth! Which is kind of something we’re really comfortable with—even in this film, by the end, the audience are baying for fucking blood, and the satisfaction when the weapon comes out is enormous. That’s all Cassie ever looked for, is acknowledgement. Because young women don’t go into houses full of 20 huge men. How Do We Solve Attacks Against Asian Americans? This is far from a traditional rape-revenge thriller, as Cassie doles out meticulous and crafty justice both to the men who exploit, abuse, and assault women, and to the complicit women who prop up the status quo through victim blaming and inaction. Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman takes a deep dive into toxic masculinity and the ripple effects of sexual assault years. She at least knew she could do that. Cassie seeks justice for Nina by becoming a kind of emotional vigilante. KEEP READING: Tiny Pretty Things: Season 1's Most Shocking Plot Holes, Explained. After years and years of being told that the thing that you believe is wrong, that you need to just shut up and get over it, there’s a reason she’s been doing her weekly tension releases with these strangers. To local authorities. Yes. If we dropped one scene, we were doomed. 'Promising Young Woman' Arrives in This Christmas, Broadway's Promises, Promises Promises to Be Charming. She doesn’t want to punish anyone. Promising Young Woman's plot sees Carey Mulligan's Cassie seek revenge against her friend Nina's rapist, and those who refused to believe her. Written directed and co-produced by Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman stars Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Connie Britton and Laverne Cox. In which case, if this is something that society says isn’t bad, then why would the man mind if it turned out that the woman he thought was blackout drunk actually wasn’t drunk? This piece also contains frank discussion of rape and gendered violence, including murder. Covering the hottest movie and TV topics that fans want. To top all this off, I've scribed short films and documentaries, conceptualizing stories and scripts from a human interest and social justice perspective. With Alison Brie, she’s showing her, in the simplest way she can, that her argument is bullshit, because once it applies to her, it’s null and void. Oh, FYI, I'd love to write the Gargoyles movie for Disney. Nina, just like Cassie, was a “promising young woman,” until a sexual assault left her so emotionally destroyed that she died by suicide. -- Jenny Holzer been thinking about what to write about this one for the past couple of weeks. Click the button below to start this article in quick view. But I just couldn’t see it any other way. But there's a massive problem with this ending because it's just cold to murder the protagonist and female rights activist of the film while the fiends live. Her death would have ultimately displayed just how disposable women are in a world run by men, a point that Promising Young Woman has made ⦠Pushing thirty, and defined by a hideous crime involving her bosom friend, Nina, emotionally scarred medical school dropout, Cassie, knows firsthand that some wounds never heal. But she knows the moment she looks up Al Monroe’s name, she’s doomed. It was the only ending that felt real to me. Nina later reported the crime to the school. I wish I could! She’s trying to put all of that energy that she feels about something very personal elsewhere, because she knows if she looks at the thing that she’s really angry about, she will lose all control. Indeed, there’s not a single frame of her directorial debut that could be described as run-of-the-mill. “Traditionally associated with grindhouse misogyny and BBFC-vexing video nasties, it’s a format that by its very nature hinges on sexual violence,” The Guardian wrote in a succinct summary two years ago, noting that the trope was undergoing a renaissance in the wake of the #MeToo movement. Because by society’s logic, he would have done nothing wrong, right? It's now seven years later, Nina has died by suicide and Cassie enacts her revenge by pretending to be too drunk to stand at bars every week. I think because Focus [Features] came on board, people think it’s a studio movie, which is lovely, because we wanted it to look like one. âPromising Young Womanâ â currently playing in select theaters and premiering on video-on-demand platforms Jan. 15 â ends with Cassie dying at the hands of one of those predators, clean-cut Al Monroe (Chris Lowell), a classmate who raped Cassieâs longtime best friend, Nina, and ⦠If you don’t see it, you get punished.” She’s teaching a lesson. If he were just a horrible, obviously scary creep, it wouldn’t have the same impact. The directorial debut of former Killing Eve showrunner Emerald Fennel, Promising Young Woman is a blackly comic psychological thriller that tells the story of Cassie, the titular promising young woman whose life is derailed by the rape and subsequent suicide ⦠"I AM AWAKE IN THE PLACE WHERE WOMEN DIE." The two were bright, young girls attending medical school, slated to do good things in life. I wish I could have let myself, and everybody else, off the hook, because there is, of course, a hypothetical alternative ending to this movie that is incredibly satisfying. In âPromising Young Woman,â Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, whose childhood best friend, Nina, was raped during a raucous party in medical school. Cassie dropped out to take care of her and still driven by guilt, she's now moonlighting as a vigilante to teach predators a lesson. She’s ashamed. One by one, she crosses off old acquaintances on a list when former classmate Ryan (Bo Burnham) comes back into her life and the two start a romance. WARNING: The following article contains major spoilers for Promising Young Woman, in theaters now. The tape goes out to the authorities and they storm Al's wedding, arresting him and finding evidence at the burn site of the killing. The Undoing: Did Jonathan Ever Actually Love [SPOILER]? Sheâs overwhelmed with grief and trauma after her friend Nina was sexually assaulted and, we are meant to assume, died by suicide afterward. We've seen cases like Brock Turner's end with slaps on the wrist, so being arrested isn't a win for these "promising young men" who might be offered rehabilitation. Even Ryan gets messages from a cheeky Cassie that make it clear toxic men can't evade their sins. So we’re used to that. Promising Young Woman is revelatory in how it refuses to mince words and refuses to take the easy way out in every instance. She follows a tight plan that illustrates her capability while providing some catharsis, particularly in the Me Too era. Because it’s so unexpected. Cassie is saying, “Do you see this thing? This post contains spoilers for Promising Young Woman.. Emerald Fennell, the writer-director of Promising Young Woman, didn't want to have her heroine die ⦠I like parameters. I remember I was with my amazing producer Fiona [Walsh Heinz], and we were looking at the schedule before we started shooting and she was like, “We are … probably a centimeter away from impossible here.” So that meant we just needed a huge amount of discipline and preparation. Comedians tend to be much more comfortable going for the jugular, because it’s where they like to be anyway. But let’s say, even if she had carved Nina’s name all over [Al’s] body and maimed him horribly, then she goes to prison. If you're bored by now, then you also don't want to hear that I write for ESPN on the PR side of things. Promising Young Woman is a 2020 American black comedy thriller film written, produced, ⦠That seemed like a great lesson to start the film out with. But then, what’s the point? No matter how clever she is, no matter how meticulously planned it is, it’s very, very difficult to physically fight a man if you’re a small young woman, or any woman really. Cassie didn't really show intent to murder these fiends, so it isn't a matter of "an eye for an eye." But Cassie, for all her smarts, has no superpowers. But she’s also desperate. What drives her is the fate of her best friend, Nina, who is never seen on-screen. Cassie did too, to take care of her. Promising Young Woman definitely goes after toxic masculinity in a big way, making bold statements as Carey Mulligan's Cassie unravels a plot to avenge her dead friend, Nina. RELATED: Servant: Everything You Need to Know for Season 2. She was just going to cut Al's skin up so future women would know he's a sex offender. Because it goes wrong. The first scene that came into my head was also how the movie begins: an incredibly drunk girl at a bar being picked up and going home with someone, him undressing her, her drunkenly saying, “What are you doing?” and then her suddenly sitting up and saying, stone-cold sober, “What are you doing?” That moment—that “What are you doing?”—is what the film is really about. Harper's BAZAAR participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites. The thing for me with Cassie is that she’s absolutely not on a suicide mission. While we ⦠A one-stop shop for all things video games. However, it goes awry as she chains up him, resulting in Al stifling her to death. But I think like everything in this movie, appearances are deceiving. What happens to her is dreadful, and I think the way she fights for her life proves that this is not the outcome she wanted. 'Pretty Woman' Had a Surprising Original Ending, Plus More News. The Vaccine and the Dark Side of Wellness, Soledad O'Brien's "Listening Tour" Continues, Schiaparelli Is Killing the Red-Carpet Game, This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. She’s frightened by herself, and then in the scene after that, Ryan [Bo Burnham] points out that she’s noticeably wired. So part of it for me was just the reality of the situation. Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman is perhaps the boldest and most realistic example yet of the reinvigorated genre, equipping its protagonist, Cassie (Carey Mulligan), with a simmering, righteous rage that compels her to seek systematic revenge on toxic men. The title refers to Cassie (Carey Mulligan), a once-promising med student who has dropped out of school. Emerald Fennell's "Promising Young Woman" fits with Carey Mulligan's quest to play more women who are "allowed to be flawed and troubled," she says. So when Al attacks and smothers her, there’s no magical plot device or deus ex machina to save her. We’d probably double down and go, “No, actually I’m nice, and what really happened is this,” and not admit to it. And she’s so desperate that she does something incredibly dangerous, and she kind of acknowledges it might be too dangerous by the fact that she has a contingency plan. And she was going to do it in the middle of his wedding! I think for everyone who came on board the film, the reason they loved it was that it just felt true to them, it felt horribly real. It’s a gut punch of a final act, despite the fact that Cassie leaves behind a contingency plan ensuring that Al is jailed for her death. In doing so, she puts herself in a physical danger that doesn’t seem unusual, as we’re so used to seeing “badass women” defy the odds on-screen. What’s the happy ending for her, going into that place? So why would he be spooked or surprised or freaked out? All this is not to say that she should have killed them. And this is another thing, it was important to me that if the audience is expecting, or wanting violence, then this is what happens when women try to be violent. On the geek side of things, I write about comics, cartoons, video games, television, movies and basically, all things nerdy. Not really, because we were on an unbelievably tight timeframe—we shot it in 23 days. But by ending Promising Young Woman with Cassieâs post-death âvictory,â Fennell has instead set a clear price for vengeance. They're bound to have PTSD and this feels tone-deaf as it gives off a "kill the messenger but the message will live on" vibe. âIt just seemed too easy to say that she would carve Ninaâs name into his body and cut his dick off, and then walk out of the cabin in slow motion smoking a cigarette. We already see Nina's mom suffering, and now, as the cops deal with Cassie's loving parents who just wanted her to socialize, it feels so cold. In "Promising Young Woman," Carey Mulligan plays Cassie, a former medical school student who devotes her life to avenging her classmate Nina, who was raped at school. I think yes, except I don’t think that’s precisely what she meant. Following a sexual assault years ago, Nina dropped out of med school when no one believed her and eventually committed suicide. Which obviously for a film with this kind of cast and the number of different locations, it’s not like we were shooting it in a house. I grew up with that behavior being completely normal—incredibly drunk girls being taken home, and it being a gag. She just gives people an idea. First and foremost, I just think they’re all unbelievable actors, and I think comic actors don’t often get the opportunity to play these kinds of roles, and they’re usually really, really good at it. Not bad for someone from the Caribbean, eh? Emma Dibdin is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles who writes about culture, mental health, and true crime. Emerald Fennellâs icy film Promising Young Woman set off a fascinating conversation about what we expect from rape-revenge stories. But what we cannot abide is what Cassie does, which is actually … nothing. He just doesn’t realize he’s the only person in it. Promising Young Woman is a brutal examination of rape culture through the lens of a young woman who takes extreme measures to right the wrongs that led to the suicide of her lifelong best friend. I hope that we still feel her presence at the end, and feel at least that she took them down with her.
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