Promising Young Woman (2020) - What A Debut!

 

★★★★☆

What makes 'Promising Young Woman' special and engrossing are its restraint from delivering what you think it's supposed to at certain points, which keeps you wondering instead what's happened before and what will happen next, and also its magic of making you feel intense and jumpy while you're supposed to feel easy or the other way round. It's got a very intriguing opening, and a rather shocking ending that might be considered anti-climax, but to me, it's absolutely an out of the blue, off the wall scenario, which is kind of cruel but pretty romantic. And it manages to hold your attention all the way. That's rare and difficult as y'know we're all running out of patience nowadays!

The film is Emerald Fennell's directorial debut. You may feel familiar with the style she adopts here if you've watched the award-winning TV series she's involved in, 'Killing Eve', which appears to be bloody slick when it comes to violence, and awkwardly fun when it comes to romance. It's evident that Emerald Fennell has an ingenious way of introducing female characters and making them linger on your mind long after. 'Promising Young Woman' however, is not at all gross and violent. Carey Mulligan's Cassie is rather well mannered and restrained most of the time. Not a single drop of blood is shed throughout the film as I remember, but it keeps boosting up your curiosity and anxiety as to how it went off in the first place and how it's going to end up. And that horrifies you continuously in a sense.

This is a story of vengeance for love in case you still wonder what 'Promising Young Woman' does. Cassie reminds me of John Doe in 'Seven'. She's struggling, demonstrating, punishing, preaching and inevitably exploding. A person without fear of death is meant to perform something grand and elaborate. Sometimes we should all learn to be Cassie-like and test ourselves to see how far we're willing to go for our faith, beliefs, and loved ones!