A film review of Emerald Fennell's debut film Promising Young Woman!
A while back I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across Alice Aedy's post talking about a film called Promising Young Woman and it sounded great to me and I was scrolling through the comments and everyone was saying how much of a masterpiece it was I put it on one of my watch lists buried it into my psyche knowing I'd come back to it at some point and carried on scrolling.
Only to walk into the supermarket yesterday remembering it before I picked it up, read the blurb and I was instantly hooked and the fact that Carey Mulligan was starring in it I knew it was going to be brilliant.
Before watching it I watched the trailer again and a few interviews just to get a deeper understanding of the film and to really get a feeling for it. I left YouTube thinking I was ready for a thrilling masterpiece that would have me gripping to the edge of the sofa laughing and crying but I was squirming on the edge speechless trying to figure out what was going to happen next.
I'm currently lost for words. My stomach is wrapped in one big knot. It's truly an unforgettable watch and one of the most important films to date. Everyone should watch this!
Often you hear from men how women are equal to men now in the West and it often follows up with a nasty comments about Middle Eastern women and how women in the West don't know how easy they have it compared to them and the fact that they think women should be equal but they would never ever brand themselves a Feminist like who would ever do that?
This comparison to diminish women and their stories is quite frankly counterproductive wrapped up in the little knowledge about what's happening now and what women have been through just to sit at the table and listen to rubbish like this the fact that a bloke who Emerald pitched it too said 'Oh I get it she's a psycho' just goes to slow where people's minds go to when incidents like this happen how they blame women always.
Through the film how Cassie was deemed a failure until Ryan came into her life now she had the prospect of being a wife and having children seemingly set up for life then and how the men except the lawyer could never see beyond their own misogyny and fear.
Often when a man has a daughter or a niece he realises how misogyny; sexual harassment/violence is swept under the rug and how toxic masculinity is the bench mark for men and how selective realisation is a thing.
It often goes in two ways: the man acts on this and says it's not right and stops that behaviour and rhetoric from happening or a man has a selective realisation where he sticks up for the people he cares about as he doesn't want either of them to be tarnished.
The complexity of the human psyche the roles between men and women coloured with misogyny, sexual harassment/ violence that bleed through sexist tropes are so normalised to us half of us don't even realise we oppress others with this everyday and nobody in their right minds would ever say they're sexist or anything like that because they know it's wrong and yet it's so engrained in us, they don't realise that they exercise those very things everyday through their behaviour and language. No one talks about it and if you do you're just an annoying feminist who's then ostrised or you've done your activism for the day a quick share and right I can carry on with my life now.
We really need to work to rid this from our psyche and behaviour now and performative activism needs to be real activism and we need to work towards solving women's issues globally.
Promising Young Woman follows Cassie (brilliantly played by Carey Mulligan) who experiments on a notion to test men on their decency reliving the same night over and over again with just one significant difference which she keeps count of as her outlook deteriorates due to her findings her lessons boil over to revenge in a bold, daring and detrimental fashion towards herself (even more so than before) hell bent on justice it leads to her end. Cassie's life in the eyes of society sings to the tune of Lily Allen's 22 whilst the song she sings is Sam Fender's Greasy Spoon. Her turmoil and auspicious promise is both wrapped in her release and her fallible fate. The song Juice Newton Angels Of The Morning encapsulates a whirlwind emotions stirring throughout the film. Each character is uniquely complex and strikingly real, no character was let off the hook for their choices and behaviours and it was intricately explored. Sometimes I was taken aback by how Ryan (played by Bo Burnham) would speak to Cassie and how he turned on her do you see. Her writing is absolutely exquisite, it was daring and bold, it made you think and laugh (I really loved the supermarket scene!) Her filmmaking was as if she lit a flame that was gradually splashed with diesel until it all went up in flames.
I honestly can't wait to see what she does next!
Thank you for reading. I wish you all the best and I hope you have a great day!
Written by Zebbie Ann Perry.
