Author Topic: Promising Young Woman  (Read 3650 times)

Bondo

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Promising Young Woman
« on: March 20, 2021, 07:28:50 PM »
This seems like a film that is impossible to talk about in any real fashion without spoilers.

In comparing two films from the past year that both look into certain aspects of rape culture, this is a bull in a china shop approach next to The Assistant's banality of evil approach. I found The Assistant astute and insightful and thought it deserved so many Oscar nominations instead of none. Promising Young Woman got numerous nominations but leaves me pondering whether this film is actively harmful. There is a cinematic dynamism to the storytelling--from a moral standpoint it seems in line with I Care A Lot--but there's kind of a nasty nihilism about it that suggests such a rigged game (and such an awful humanity) that the only solution is self-destruction and immoral retribution.

"Not all men" is kind of a joke at this point as a means of deflecting critique against general patriarchy/mankind in society. This film's world pretty much says "Yes All Men" but importantly, that is from her perspective, and her perspective suffers from selection bias. Using her tactic of acting pass-out drunk in clubs to draw "nice guys" that take her home but inevitably try to take advantage of her, only to reveal herself to be fully sober, she kind of does a scared straight routine. Each man is added to her book of shitty men. Not added to the book are the men who don't try to take advantage of her because they aren't at the club in the first place (and I think night clubs probably have a disproportionate number of awful men). I take none of this lightly as I have a friend who was assaulted by a guy who took her home drunk, a guy who was a very close friend of hers, not some random stranger, which is probably the more real threat. But this is a testament to the film's worldview.

In the middle section we get two parallel tracks, Cassie trying to open herself to a relationship with Ryan, who seems actually decent, while at the same moment putting into action a scheme of retribution against those she sees as complicit in the assault of her best friend years back (the cause of her dropping out of medical school and generally stalling in life). Her methods involve head fakes where on the surface they seem vile but we find out they are perhaps just murky. As someone on the record of not buying into two wrongs make a right logic, or of working outside due process, this definitely poses a challenge in your perception of her.

The film ends with her getting a measure of justice, through the creation of some new injustices, and at a personal cost to herself that certainly doesn't make it feel anything like justice. On the one hand you have the undoing of Ryan, revealed to have been a witness (though I didn't get the sense he was a participant) in her friend Nina's assault. The Assistant does a good job of depicting how someone might know the truth and feel unable to act, to be unable to call out something bad in the moment...and critiquing it has a bit of the nature of those who doubt victims because "they should have reported it." More overt is with Al who, as much as we might want to see him held accountable, could reasonably claim he acted in self-defense in killing Cassie, though in a turnabout from the initiating incident, no one would likely believe him (especially after he and his Best Man display a guilty conscience by getting rid of evidence). So yeah, I don't think this film does anything to further understanding or to make improvements, it just looks around and decides that everything sucks so you might as well take part in burning it down.

It isn't a coincidence that the moments that stand out most in the film, her conversation with the defense attorney who got Al off (played by Alfred Molina) and her conversation with Nina's mother (Molly Shannon), are the ones that embrace humanity and redemption the most. I don't know, maybe anything happier would be lies (The Assistant certainly doesn't give us a happy ending either), but if you give up on hope you have nothing. It makes me think of the end of Get Out as compares with the original ending. Or the finding that while a lot of success and failure has limited connection to personal effort, believing that personal effort is vital does tend to boost success. Sometimes lying to ourselves to create hope or motivation is essential.

FLYmeatwad

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Re: Promising Young Woman
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2021, 10:30:45 PM »
This film started off as a true heater with both neon and a banger Charli XCX song, two things that are very much direct plays for a four star rating, and also features a much needed dose of CMP (as all films do) at one point, but the mid section kind of sags and the entirety of the ending post her death makes little sense/undermines the film pretty heavily imo. Them not just calling the cops didn't make a ton of sense, as there were enough of them to put together a story and also she was going there to dish out justice on her own terms after the legal system failed, so I think they're in a position that could be defended, but even if we accept their decision to get rid of the body, the whole plan to get the cops there exactly at the wedding felt like it was meant to be a triumph when she was already dead. Though, regardless, I think the film makes a more realistic point and one that hits harder by having them get away with it at that point, especially after the scene where Bo gets questioned. Was super pumped to see this in the theater, and to continue early on, but I came out realitively negative and those feelings have only grown since then. Absolutely ridiculous for this to be considered anything close to a Best Picture, as there are plenty of other films even in 2020 that blend style with substance to mixed results, and one notable one dealing with similar themes that is way more accomplished (The Assistant, obvi).

Will

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Re: Promising Young Woman
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2021, 01:34:14 PM »
The whole movie is angry at the legal system for not believing Nina then at the end Cassie just decides to leave her entire fate to the... legal system?! And it works this time?! What changed? It's so bizarre.

Bondo

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Re: Promising Young Woman
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2021, 09:02:42 PM »
I mean, I do think the prosecutor would have a fairly easy time of it, and a lot of the issues with prosecuting sexual assault cases don't carry over to murder cases. So it's not completely crazy to think the plan will work. It's a strange plan.

Eric/E.T.

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Re: Promising Young Woman
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2021, 10:24:29 PM »
My 3.5 Star Letterboxd Review

I liked most of it so much that I was able to somewhat forgive the ending. I thought that the relationship with a seemingly actual decent man, Ryan, was the element that made this work (even though I don't mention it in my review, strangely, my mind just goes places), as it poked holes in the idea of a "good" man, and led her ultimately to full embrace nihilism and end the way it did. Now that I think about it, maybe she was less concerned about making sure the plan worked and people got in trouble than the idea that she just wanted to die and have this all be over. In that, the profound and angry silence Fennell seemed to be going for could have been successful(?). I deal well with uncertainty, and my working thoughts on the film are that I'm fairly uncertain about that ending, but know that it prevents the film from being a total success in my mind. But I think I'm closer with the Academy on this film than a lot of people here and other places I read are. I just thinking the ending might be a result of truly overthinking it.
A witty saying proves nothing. - Voltaire

Will

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Re: Promising Young Woman
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2021, 11:31:20 PM »
Abysmal.

Equally disrespectful to fans of the subgenre (rape revenge films) and assault victims. I fundamentally do not understand who this film is for or the impetus for it being made. I don't think the writer/director did either. There's a current trend of extremely didactic pieces of cinema where every character is reduced to tool in order for the Important Message to get across to the viewer. PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN veers strongly into After School Special caricatures just with an R-rated twist. This would be fine if the movie wasn't trying for reality - but the number of allusions to real life and the general naturalistic tone suggest otherwise. This would also be fine if I could understand the underlying motivation for the characters in the film, but this is also obfuscated by a blatant disregard on the writer's part to understand basic human psychology. For an example - at one point, Cassie tells a Dean that she placed her daughter in danger. The Dean does not respond by threatening to press charges, calling security, or even calling the cops. She pleads Cassie to tell her where her daughter is. After the situation is diffused, the Dean doesn't pursue any further charges despite the fact that Cassie could very well go to jail for kidnapping a minor. There's plenty of other problems I have with this movie (perhaps I'll go to Spoiler Talk for it), but this is truly the best representation of it all. It assumes that all you have to do is craft a well articulated monologue that illustrates the hypocrisy of the other person and everything will be fine! They will admit to their wrongdoing and change their ways.

 

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