Promising Young Woman is a 2020 black comedy thriller movie that stars numerous famous actors such as Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Laverne Cox and Connie Briton. This movie quickly became popular after premiering at the Sundance Festival. It received critical acclaim, with high praise for the direction, screenplay and the performance of the actors and received several Oscar nominations, including Best Actress for Mulligan’s performance and one Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay.
In this dark comedy, thriller we follow Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan), a 30 year-old former medical school student who dropped out to deal with the trauma of her friend, Nina, being raped by their classmate Al Monroe (Chris Lowell).
Cassie is still affected by the fact the rape went unpunished. She copes with her trauma by going to clubs, pretending to be drunk and then once a man lures her home, she stops acting drunk and makes them feel ashamed of trying to take advantage. However, after she goes on a date with her old college classmate Ryan (Bo Burnham) and he reveals Al Monroe is about to get married, her trauma surfaces again and she decides to take a strong stance. She plans to get revenge for the rape and subsequent death of her dear friend Nina.
Cassie, upset and traumatized, orchestrates a complicated and careful scheme to take revenge on the classmates that knew about Nina’s rape and did nothing, and tries to ruin Al’s wedding and expose him as a rapist at the same time.
This movie deals with some touchy, difficult topics in a balanced way. It doesn’t take them so seriously as to make the movie depressing, but it doesn’t take them so lightly as to devalue them. The performance of Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman is nothing short of brilliant, and she delivers a masterful role like few could have done. This movie is fun and sad alike: it marries humor with some dark, heavy topics perfectly.
Rating 4/5
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