Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell, April 17, 2020) Movie • Page 4

Did not like this. It’s very strange how the first 2/3 seems to do a decent job conveying how futile and soul-destroying it is seek revenge, yet basically drops that completely once she learns how she can fully get her revenge.

Like yes she dies but the film absolutely presents it as if she “won.” I don’t agree with people saying that there’s any sort of ambiguity as to whether the guy will get his or not — he got carried off in handcuffs at his wedding and they found her ashes. You have to look outside the film for explanations as to how he is actually going to be fine when the film itself is screaming in your face that she pulled one over on him and won in the end. Yes the film spends a good amount of time pointing out how there’s a whole web of people there to protect the guy from any consequences, but rather than subtly acknowledging that, I would say the ending completely forgets that and contradicts it outright. It wouldn’t have even taken ten seconds to convey anything to support the idea that he was going to be fine, but the film didn’t do that; it ended with Cassandra’s victorious wink text.

What could have been more interesting imo is a movie that touches on where one draws the line between accountability and vengeance. There’s no question that it’s horrible that all these people either raped or covered for a rapist, or are the misc guys like McLovin who manipulate vulnerable women. But what does Cassandra get out of what she’s doing? Catharsis? In what world is it giving someone their just desert by making them believe they were raped themselves? Or attempting to carve the victim’s name into the flesh of the rapist? How does that help her move on at all? It’s exactly because revenge is so enticing in that scenario and that we are sympathetic to Cassandra’s suffering that it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth for the film to embrace it.

Best part was the use of the Paris Hilton song and the Night of the Hunter clip/song

 

Oh wow, I did have the thought of "no not Schmidt!!" but didn't connect the dots that the others were in the same boat of being beloved characters from the past. That's pretty great.

 

yeah it was extremely hard to watch the Bo turn in this even though you 100% know it's coming from the moment they first talk about med school together

 

the dude who played Al wasn't super lovable in veronica mars tbh

 

Wife is super into Greys Anatomy/Private Practice. When he showed up she very excitedly went “OH IT’S DELL!!!”

I definitely only know dude as Piz but apparently he had a second wave as a heartthrob

 

I thought this was fantastic. It was extremely unsettling throughout and the ending is satisfying but also a punch to the gut. One thing in particular that stuck out to me was the casting. It's brilliant. Most of the men cast are actors who we wildly associate as "good/relatable guys" in other mediums (Seth from the OC, McLovin, Bo Burnham) and we're continually forced to reexamine those perceptions.

My main gripes are the forgiveness of the lawyer and some of the comedic beats after Cassie's murder. The comedic beats felt tasteless (though, I would guess that was the intention), but I got over it a little once they are all arrested at the end. I have a bigger gripe with the lawyer. Yes, it's good that he feels true remorse and wants to repent for destroying the lives of countless women, but does he deserve blanket forgiveness? I felt he got off too easy.

 

The more I think about this movie, the more upset I get about it, and that review does a good job of hitting on a lot of my issues.

Honestly, how do you make a movie that revolves entirely around the idea that the system fails women in this way, then end on the very clear implication that the system actually works? I really don't know how you get any other reading out of that ending -- her revenge is not something she is able to exact herself, but a clear reliance on those within the system to do their jobs properly. It is not only a lazy twist (whereas her death was a clever twist imo, and I think could have led to a better ending than this one) but completely undermines the entire theme of the movie up to that point!

For example, why would she put her fate in the hands of the guy's lawyer like that? Why not just send the package to her parents or her friend's mom or Laverne Cox or literally anyone else lol. She held such a harsh grudge against him that she hired a guy to I guess assault him(?), then she talks to him one time and he cried in front of her so now she not only forgives him but trusts him enough to seek justice on her behalf? It feels like they decided on the ending before writing the rest of the story.

 

Apparently, the arrest ending was pushed by the film's financiers

 

oh man there are so many parts of that article that make my blood boil lol

 

The film’s indictment of the system is that it’s saying it would take literally all of what happens at the end of the movie to actually have any chance for the system to potentially work lol

 

That just isn’t the factual situation that the film sets up though - she did not get any justice for her friend, she just had the forethought to predict that she would fail to get revenge on her own terms and have to rely on others to avenge that. If she wants the system to potentially work and punish the rapist for their rape, why not just alert the cops of the video in the first place? Him getting off on some self-defense argument where there is all the evidence in the world that she was going there to kill/seriously injure him is infinitely more likely than him finding some way to explain away the video of him literally raping someone.

I think Fennell’s explanation that it wasn’t the original ending makes sense for why I think it is bad - in my prior post I said I figured they thought of the ending first and then made the story, but really it makes more sense that they had this far darker ending and were pushed to shoehorn in some semblance of victory. And I just don’t think there is a good, coherent way to do that given the preceding 100 minutes; that it would have required changing much more than just the ending

 

The whole thing works as if the main character read the script in advance.

The weird thing about the ending is that it is framed as if the rapist and his friends are going to jail for murder. By her own admission she went in there for some sort of revenge, so it would not be terribly hard for wealthy people and their lawyers to spin it as self-defense, which it was in some ways anyway. They are going to get in trouble for trying to get rid of the body and destroy evidence, but they will argue that they were afraid of the ramifications and the ultimate punishment is going to be far less than the film acts like it will be.

What was her plan afterward? Was she going to kill him and then go to jail for it? One of the other men at the party could have been the one to hire her and they would trace that murder back. The whole thing only works with the characters behaving according to the screenplay.

 

i liked this a good amount but the plotting of the ending is a bit nebulous, at best

 

I think a revenge story can generally (generally! Not trying to make any hard rules here or anything) work in either two ways: (1) it isn’t actually worth it and just leads to your own self-destruction, or (2) there are no other ways of getting justice except revenge, so to the extent that the story even touches on that self-destruction, it is ultimately worth it, at least in the eyes of the protagonist who we are sympathetic towards.

For the vast majority of this movie, it is very much presented as going the route of #1: she is self-destructive to the point that it is deeply concerning to everyone who cares about her, and right when she is about to get past it, a new trigger comes along and she gives in despite knowing it would lead to her downfall. While that’s probably not the movie most people wanted (like the writer of the article Nathan posted), I think it would have at least worked thematically (though there would still be the issue of the ridiculous scoldings, and the method in which she got revenge on the women)

But then the movie just keeps going to the point that it somehow ends up with #2 - that she actually “won” and we can simultaneously mourn her death while celebrating her victory. And as a result that victory feels completely hollow in light of everything else we had been presented. I’m not a stickler for plot holes or anything but it goes beyond that into the territory of undermining so much of what came before it

 

Bummer the people who financed the movie changed the original ending

 

More I think about this, more issues I have with it, but Bo Burnham’s “Hold the spit” line/delivery was A+.

 

Just do subtitles anyway I can't imagine this working dubbed in addition to it being gross

 

I just watched this last night and I can’t say it’s a great movie, but I’ve definitely been thinking about it a lot.

I think the middle section of the film that focuses on the relationship between Cassie and Ryan impacted me the most. I thought it was great how the director played into rom com tropes and made me root for that relationship and then twisted it.

I thought the film was just going to fade to black right at the end of the bachelor party.

 

hbo max 9/25

 

on hbo max

 

I think the saddest thing for me isn't that she died, it's that she knew that was a possibility and went in anyway.

 

6/10. Tonally all over the place, hated the "happy" ending, and just not a single believable character in the bunch. The entire movie felt so convenient and contrived. Alison Brie coming to reveal some tape that happens to have Bo's voice, so clear, the moment after they fall in love... oh come on. We all knew bo would have some sort of past or be revealed to be a creep himself, that was super obvious, but "some never before tape that brie happened to have kept all these years", gtfo.

I can live with the hard to believe moments like this if the movie was framed in some sort of revenge fantasy fake world. Theres a way to make that work, but again, this is why my biggest issue is the tone all over the place. Thats not what the movie was conveying. Just convenient plot point after convenient plot point.

Its still a 6 because there were some parts that really resonated and mulligan really made it work. Honestly, once we stopped doing mulligans pretty lame "privately shaming creepy guy" revenge stuff, I thought the movie got way more interesting.

 

I've been thinking about this movie again, so I read several articles saying this movie failed actual survivors, and I think that's altered how I feel about the ending