(Spoilers Ahead)
Trigger Warning: This content contains subject matter that discusses sexual assault and suicide, which may be distressing for some readers.
What is a Promising Young Woman About?
Promising Young Woman is a film written and directed by Emerald Fennell. Its story surrounds the lovely 30 year old Cassie, a medical school dropout turned vigilante for her small suburban town. When Cassie isn’t working at a local coffee shop, she’s spending the night at bars and clubs, without the company of friends, pretending to be too drunk to walk to attract predatory men. Once Cassie has found said creep, they both leave to go to his place, only for her to snap out of a drunken stupor and into a speech about how awful and exploitative her target really is. Oftentimes these men retort with the tried and true phrases, “I’m a nice guy” or “why do women have to ruin everything” before finding a warm place to hide, leaving Cassie feeling vindicated.Â
Where Do the Film Problems Lie?Â
My first problem with the film lies in these scenes. While it’s hard to believe that any woman would ever choose to go home with random creeps on her own accord, it’s even more difficult to believe that she would leave completely unharmed by an inebriated and emotionally stunted man. Cassie seems to go into each of these men’s houses with little to no fear, a feeling that I believe very few female audiences can relate to.  Fennell plays these scenes at times for what seems like laughs, the male targets growing nervous and saying increasingly ludicrous things after realizing they’ve been caught doing something truly detestable. There’s never any indication from Fennell that Cassie fears that these men could grow violent, and for a film that’s supposed to mirror the darkest parts of the female experience, I believe is a big oversight. Furthermore, while the men spend a few minutes feeling completely ashamed and afraid, it’s never clear if Cassie putting her life at risk to teach a lesson is changing the way they view their own actions, or causing them to feel even more animosity towards women.
But why would anyone pull a stunt like the one Cassie seems to pull almost every week? In this moment, Fennell’s story is pushed even further into moral ambiguity. Cassie’s best friend Nina, a smart and promising young woman whom she’s always admired, was sexually assaulted at an on-campus university party, resulting in her taking her own life. Not only was Nina humiliated in front of all her med-school classmates, but the school’s dean and many of her friends, excluding Cassie, did nothing to take her case seriously. Thus, in Nina’s name, Cassie goes on a mission to teach every awful man in her town a lesson, believing that this will make up in some way for the horrors her friend endured. However, Nina never asked Cassie to devote her life to these risky acts, nor would she ever be able to in the present. Nina’s mother, on the other hand, asks Cassie to move on from her heartbreaking case, not only so that Cassie may heal, but so that she can heal too. Seeing as she is most likely the only person who could have been closer to Nina’s case than Cassie, it becomes increasingly disturbing that Cassie ultimately continues her journey to right Nina’s wrongs. While it becomes increasingly evident that Cassie is a mentally unstable protagonist, it also becomes clear that her understanding of consent, along with justice for her friend, is very skewed.
Cassie’s Understanding of Consent, or Lack Thereof.
During the course of the film, Cassie drugs a woman who failed to support her friend after the assault, giving her first-hand experience on what it would feel like to lose bodily autonomy. She also kidnaps a child to teach the dean of her previous medical school, allowing her to understand the pain of losing the one you love most. Fennell, while not fully endorsing Cassie’s actions, leans into them, allowing both her protagonist and the audience to feel momentarily justified. Cassie’s less egregious crimes include her treatment of her friend Gail, who she constantly lies to and shows little care for until the last five minutes of the film. It’s worth noting that Gail is one of the few POC characters, and is given no backstory outside their relation to Cassie. Cassie’s treatment of her parents is equally if not more disheartening. The morning after coming home from a new creepy guy house, of which she has taught a lesson, she lies about her whereabouts to the two people who love her most. She rarely talks to her mother, and only has one heart-to-heart with her father, who later expresses that he misses the old Cassie – the daughter who wasn’t consumed by her friend’s death.
What Does the Film Do Right?
While I believe that Promising Young Woman has its faults, and there are many, I also commend Fennell for many of the choices she made in casting and her eye for beautiful cinematography; this film heavily stylized, brimming with baby pinks and blues, glittering neon lights and wonderfully feminine costumes. Emerald Fennell has cast an array of actors that we’ve grown to love and trust as selfish, almost freakish characters, some of which we learn later on are sexual offenders. This cast includes Adam Brody as a creepy business bro at a bar, Max Greenfeild as a completely immoral frat boy (aren’t they all?), and Alison Brie as a narcissistic old “friend”, among many others.
What I find most empowering about this film is how strongly it embraces Cassie’s femininity. We get to see the world through her gaze, and at times it can be a truly beautiful one. Even though Cassie is continuously scared by the awful men in her life, that does not stop her from recognizing her own beauty when going out on dates, often in flowy floral dresses, or working her 9-to-5, her hair in a thick braid running down her back. I love that Fennell never robs Cassie of her girlishness.
Is Promising Young Woman a Bad Film?
There’s no doubt that Promising Young Woman is an imperfect film. But whether or not it is a bad film is up to you, the viewer. There are many films I truly believe no one should ever watch. American Pie for instance, a sexist endeavour into the life of one average male teenager who desperately wants to get laid, is not a film I would ever choose to sit through again for fun. Promising Young Woman on the other hand still has a lot of value to it, and its message is just as important as it was when it came out 4 years ago; the sexual assault of women needs to be taken more seriously, and sex offenders should receive harsher consequences . While I believe it’s important that viewers understand this film has its faults, I also think it’s up to you, the viewer, to decide on your own if this is a film that’s worthy of your time.