On January 18, 2015 student athlete Brock Turner sexually assaulted Chanel Miller behind a dumpster while she was intoxicated and unconscious. Brock was tried and pled down several of the charges against him before eventually receiving a relatively tame sentencing of just six months in jail. Three months into that sentencing he was released for good behavior. Three months! There was widespread criticism of the judge who handed down that sentencing and he was recalled from office. The damage was done, though and Brock Turner got the equivalent of a hand slap for his heinous crime. During the trial media outlets referred to him as a “Promising Young Man,” as if that softened what he had done to Chanel Miller. She later released an autobiography that discussed in length the assault and subsequent trial. The case itself influenced California’s legal system to redefine what constituted rape as well as to require prison terms for rapists whose victims were unconscious. This court case, alongside many others that popped up during the #metoo movement, served as an inspiration for first time movie director Emerald Fennell’s film Promising Young Woman.
Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) is a medical school dropout working in a coffee shop. At night she is an avenging angel, going out to clubs and pretending to be excessively drunk so that men from the club will take her home and attempt to take advantage of the situation. When these men take her home and try to sleep with her she’s suddenly sober again and calls them out for their predatory behavior, getting her revenge against all men who take advantage of vulnerable women. All of this began years before when she was in med school and her friend, Nina, was assaulted at a party while passed out drunk. The subsequent inquiry resulted in no conviction and Nina ended up killing herself in the aftermath.
Cassie learns that Al Monroe (Chris Lowell), the man who committed the assault on Nina, is getting married soon. She befriends Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham), a former classmate of hers in med school and the two start dating. When she finds out, via a recording, that Ryan was at the party where Nina was assaulted, she breaks up with him and uses the video to force him to give her the location of Al’s bachelor party. With that information she sets in motion a plan to get justice and revenge for Nina.
This is a sensitive topic to tackle. Some will argue that women are asking for this type of thing to happen to them when they go out drinking. That is as stupid of an argument as saying women who dress more modestly won’t be assaulted. It’s an argument that tries to place the women at blame for the assault instead of the men who cannot control themselves. Are the women to blame for the actions of Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein? Of course not. And the assailants can be anyone from a stranger to the nice young man from across the street. To illustrate this director Emerald Fennell cast male actors who were primarily known for playing good or wholesome characters. This subverts expectations on sight and reinforces the idea that assault can come from anyone. Alfred Molina has a particularly memorable scene as the lawyer that got Al’s charges dropped. Cassie tracks him down with the intent to hold him accountable for his role in Nina’s suicide. Instead, she finds a man in despair, emotionally a wreck over how his work has harmed women over the years. He feels deep and honest sorrow and longs for her forgiveness. He is the only one she feels has sufficiently repented to deserve it that forgiveness.
Cassie’s plans for revenge include the dean of the school, Elizabeth Walker (Connie Britton), who dismissed the charges against Al for lack of evidence. Elizabeth spouts on about how such scandals can destroy a man’s life and that they cannot just take a girl’s words for gospel, especially a girl known for partying and sleeping around. She uses the old analogy of the boy who cried wolf to justify her actions. Only when Cassie reveals that she has allegedly picked up Elizabeth’s daughter earlier and dropped her off at a dorm full of drunken male students does the dean step back and confront her own inactions.
Cassie’s targeted attacks on random men in clubs illustrates a fundamental problem in our society of actions and consequences. Yes women getting drunk alone in clubs opens them up to potential assault but that does not make them at fault for that assault. It is also true that a vindictive woman needs only to point the finger and claim assault and it can destroy a man’s life even if no conviction happens. And it’s not just sexual assault, either. Just the year prior to this film’s release black actor Jussie Smollett told police that he was physically attacked outside his apartment in what he claimed was a racial and homophobic hate crime. There have been several other documented assaults that have come out as false, too, making it very difficult to prove intent. But that doesn’t justify inaction merely to avoid sullying someone’s good name. Elizabeth’s response to why she dropped the investigation is weak at best and she knew it.
With Cassie’s evening excursions to ferret out bad men comes some very real danger that unfortunately doesn’t really get addressed. We get just two moments where we see her calling out these would be rapists and a third that gets interrupted prematurely. The first comes out of the club scene when she is brought to a man’s apartment, ostensibly too drunk to do much resisting. When the man starts making his moves on Cassie she sits up, suddenly sober and calls out sternly, “What are you doing?” The scene ends abruptly there and, later, we see Cassie adding another notch to a notebook filled with hundreds of these markings. Did all of these marks shamefully slink away when called out for their bad behavior? Not a one turned violent when they realized what was happening? And how come word hasn’t gotten out about what she is doing? With that many notches surely her description would be passed around enough to make her little game quite a bit less successful by this point. It’s a nitpick but one I picked up on very early on.
The final confrontation between Cassie and Al starts out feeling cathartic but is overshadowed by a sense of dread that things will not turn out happy for her. Even if she succeeds in her quest for revenge she will not emerge from this whole ordeal unscathed. If she fails she could end up dead. I will not reveal how it plays out but the ending is both melancholy and bittersweet and hits all the right notes to be satisfying. Things do not play out as expected but are exactly how they needed to be for this story to work and be satisfying. Emerald Fennell struck a chord with this picture and called out all the BS that people use to justify bad behavior. It holds everyone accountable for their actions while making sure we see the justifications being made. It’s a poignant observational piece about the #metoo movement, a tough subject that could easily be seen as pandering to current affairs, yet it doesn’t feel like it is. It feels like a film that pushes into the light a topic that for far too long lingered in the shadows, never talked about and far too often dismissed. This, quite simply, is a film that needs to be seen and discussed more than it currently is.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Ben Browning, Ashley Fox, Emerald Fennell and Josey McNamara
Best Director: Emerald Fennell
Best Actress: Carey Mulligan
Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell (won)
Best Film Editing: Frédéric Thoraval
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Release Date: December 25, 2020
Running Time: 114 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Chris Lowell, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Connie Britton and Molly Shannon
Directed By: Emerald Fennell
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