Pushing thirty, and defined by a hideous crime involving her bosom friend, Nina, emotionally scarred medical school dropout, Cassie, knows firsthand that some wounds never heal. Leading an uneventful existence, still living with her parents, waiting tables at a cheap coffee shop to earn a living, Cassie has found the perfect way to deal with the painful past. Dressed to kill, at night, Cassie frequents the local bars and nightclubs, pretending to be dead-drunk, utterly helple... (Full plot summary below)
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Pushing thirty, and defined by a hideous crime involving her bosom friend, Nina, emotionally scarred medical school dropout, Cassie, knows firsthand that some wounds never heal. Leading an uneventful existence, still living with her parents, waiting tables at a cheap coffee shop to earn a living, Cassie has found the perfect way to deal with the painful past. Dressed to kill, at night, Cassie frequents the local bars and nightclubs, pretending to be dead-drunk, utterly helpless and vulnerable. And, every week, lethally beautiful Cassie is on the prowl for all sorts of nocturnal predators and other wolves in sheep's clothing, who are unaware that, sometimes, the hunter can become the prey. Then, Ryan, a kindly and caring old classmate who is the bee's knees, enters the picture, and just like that, Cassie wants out. However, everybody knows that breaking bad habits is easier said than done. Could Ryan be the one?
Leave your thoughts about Promising Young Woman.
| The GuardianPeter BradshawWriter-director Emerald Fennell (a showrunner for TV’s Killing Eve) lands a stiletto jab with her feature debut, and Carey Mulligan is demurely brilliant as the appropriately named Cassandra. |
| EmpireSophie Monks KaufmanAn ambitious, original and surprisingly emotional calling card from Emerald Fennell, with a ferociously great Carey Mulligan performance and a theme that couldn’t belong more to this cultural moment. |
| San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleApart from the excellence of this film, Fennell may have tapped into something tonally that truly expresses the moment we’re in. Point being, we’re in a time of horrible ridiculousness, and ridiculous horribleness. The revelation of Promising Young Woman is that its heightened reality feels more real — closer to actual reality — than comedy or drama. |
| ABCPeter TraversIn filmmaker Emerald Fennell’s diabolically funny takedown of toxic masculinity, Carey Mulligan gives a dynamite performance that should make her a frontrunner in the Oscar race for Best Actress. |
| The Associated PressJocelyn NoveckThe tone shifts radically from one moment to the next, and humor is a regular companion to mayhem, pain, even violence. That brings us to the wild and harrowing ending. It’s an ending that may not be expected — well, it’s definitely not expected — but Fennell has said it was the truest way to end a real story of female revenge, not a comic-book version. |
| USA TodayBrian TruittPromising Young Woman is a deliciously dark and wonderful combo of style, substance and artfully utilized pop jams. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperWriter-director-producer Emerald Fennell (who is also an actor and plays Camilla Parker Bowles on “The Crown”) delivers a sensational first feature film with this well-crafted, bold, visually stunning and emotionally resonant gem. |
| VoxAlex Abad-SantosThe film’s use of neon candy pinks, its star’s striking choice of nail polish, the soundtrack, the casting, the drama imbued in every shot, no matter whether it’s an extreme close-up of just-smacked bubblegum or a wide shot of a bleak overpass, or our electrifying heroine (played by Carey Mulligan) — it all works in unison to deliver a mesmerizing film wrapped around Fennell’s savage idea. |
| PolygonRoxana HadadiThe brightly rendered details and Mulligan’s full-throated performance accessorize a film that ultimately might not be as groundbreaking as Fennell thinks it is regarding gender roles and heterosexual dynamics. But there’s an undeniable satisfaction to her brutish approach. |
| Washington PostAnn HornadaySay this much for Fennell: She is incapable of pulling punches. Even when they’re swaddled in the puffiest, fuzziest of gloves, her blows land with gut-wrenching force. |
