Promising Young Woman (2020) Movie Drinking Game
Do a Shot: every time Cassie or the film makes a tally mark.
Take a Drink: every time Cassie pays someone a lesson.
Do a Shot: for every moment you laugh at and think maybe you shouldn’t have.
Take a Drink: for every great use of music.
Do a Shot: for the two The Night of the Hunter references (YES!)
Lastly, Pound a Beer: for that twist!
By: Movie Snurb (A Toast) –
Cassie (Carey Mulligan) is a woman in her early 30s who spends her evenings at bars pretending to be too drunk to stand. Every night a “nice guy” comes to check on her and “get her home safely”. Inevitably, the men become predators as they begin to, in varying degrees, sexually assault Cassie when she pretends to be passing out. She then gives them a wakeup call on how this is not how you treat women and goes home to do it all again the next night. She was in Med school, but a horrific event with her friend led to her dropping out, and she now works at a local coffee shop and at night becomes a sort of female vigilante. Until one day Ryan (Bo Burnham), a former classmate, comes into her shop and asks her out on date. This allows Cassie a way to reap vengeance on the ones that raped her friend Nina and were complicit during and after the incident.
A Toast
Emerald Fennell has not just burst onto the filmmaking scene as much as she blew the doors off and announced herself. I am going to do my best to keep this spoiler free; however, this film is hard to talk about without spoilers. So, be warned that I may not give out specific spoilers but you may be able to read between the lines and notice a few things. Most of the praise for this film is going to the acting, which I totally agree with, and commendations will be coming later in my review. However, the script and direction by Emerald is gobsmackingly good, especially for a first time filmmaker. This is a timely story, and in this post #MeToo era stories are beginning to be told in order to open a dialogue. I don’t know if Emerald’s goal was to start a conversation; I think it is to serve as a wakeup call to society that the way the system is set up is so Men can overcome any hurdle put in their place and it’s not at all the same for Women. It’s also to show that any guy can be a bad guy, even the child doctor who seems so sweet; he can be complicit, which is just as bad. Sometimes that wolf really is in sheep’s clothing.
Fennell’s script takes aim at these issues and obliterates them. She’s not interested in if she has offended someone. She wants to get her message out and this is a message that won’t come across in an afterschool special manner. I have loved reading about the discord around this film and it’s definitely going to be one we keep talking about for years to come. This will do for dark comedies what Get Out did for horror films… what do you have to say about society or sociopolitical issues?
Fennell has such a command behind the camera; it’s great to find a filmmaker who is confident in their abilities and the story they’re telling. Most filmmakers are trying to find their voice with their first film, but Fennell directs like a veteran. Her use of pop music is some of the best deployment in a while. Most times pop music is used as a crutch, to help make the story more entertaining because they don’t trust the material. Fennell uses pop music to perfection twice; the Rite Aid/relationship montage, and the ending. Thanks to Fennell I have listened to “Stars are Blind” by Paris Hilton on Repeat and has become my new guilty pleasure. Don’t worry, I’m doing fine 11 months into quarantine.
Okay, here’s where it gets a bit more spoiler-y.
The acting elevates the script to another level. Carey Mulligan’s anger really penetrates you with fire. Burnham’s charm is ridiculous; he lulls you into a false sense of security. We spend so much time with him being charming and lovely that when the needle drop moment happens we feel the betrayal that Mulligan’s Cassie feels. Fennell’s script is an empathy machine, helmed by Mulligan. If the film was less believable then we would feel for Cassie like we do, but it’s the honestly that lends to the empathy. Therefore, when we get to the scene when Cassie learns about the video, we are crushed and we finally feel the rage and betrayal. It’s so perfectly done, it’s the best twist of 2020 hands down. Carey Mulligan has already had a brilliant career, but she is putting in her best work in this film. I don’t like to put the value of a film in its Oscar potential, but this is the type of role that a vet like Mulligan would finally get her an Oscar for.
Verdict
I’m forcing myself to stop writing about this film because I could go on so long; it’s films like this one that make me want to start a podcast or YouTube channel. This is one of the strongest directorial debuts for a filmmaker in recent memory. It’s not a perfect film, but it’s still pretty amazing and if you allow yourself to sit back and watch it maybe we can begin to have a real conversation about how systems are set up to force people to be complicit about these things and cover them up rather than actually do something.
