Promising Young Woman: Bittersweet Vengeance

Warning: The following post contains spoils.

Source: IMDb

Vengeance is one of the movie themes I love the most. It confirms a philosophy that when you can’t forgive someone because of what they did, you must take back everything. Whether it is an action movie, a thriller, or a drama, or even a comedy, this theme shows no chance of mercy. But what if there is a revenge movie perfectly balanced between forgiveness and vengeance.

Ah, it is interesting.

In 2021, Emerald Fennell, a British director, and a screenwriter won an Oscar for the Best Original Screenplay for the movie “Promising Young Woman” (2020), stood out other important movies “The Trial of Chicago 7” (2020) written by Aaron Sorkin, Minari (2020) written by Lee Issac Chung, “Sound of Metal” (2020) written by Darius Marder and Abraham Marder, and “Judas and the Black Messiah” (2020) written by Will Berson and Shaka King.

Why is “Promising Young Woman” so special?

We must talk about the plot of this movie. Spoiler alert! Cassandra, a girl who dropped out of medical school, seeks out vengeance against her past enemies. In the daytime, she is an employee at a coffee shop but at night, she changes into a dangerous girl and is ready to cut off any man’s dick. Cassandra does this revenge game because of what happened to her friend, Nina, who was raped by a group of male college students and being ignored by authorities. She later committed suicide. Cassie finds out it is injustice and unfair for her friend. She seeks vengeance in the most terrible ways. She starts to make a list of people who caused the pain to her friend and begins to take them down. The revenge path of Cassie begins to get darker and she finds out there will be no stop. But as I said, this movie is perfectly balanced between forgiveness and revenge. Cassie finds out some people deserve to be forgiven because they have gotten karma in their lives. Some people have not known what they did in the past and their lives are so happy and so perfect. Cassie knows that if she does not do something, her friend will never rest in peace.

A New Picture of Vengeance

Unlike other vengeance movies with a suffocating atmosphere, Promising Young Woman has a colorful production design. If you watch the movie, you will not see a single dark color in it. It is as if a children’s movie. Sweet as candy. Meaning you see women are sweet, nice, and easy to manipulate. But you are wrong. They are dangerous from the inside and ready to take down anyone who destroyed them. Just like Cassie, a beautiful woman with no show of notorious always wears light color clothes, and yet, behind that innocent face, it is a whole different person. If those maniacs believe they are the predator and Cassie is the prey, they are wrong. They have made the prey become a predator. Actress Carey Mulligan has portrayed Cassie in a perfect way. There is no fear on her face, there is no regret in her mind, there is zero-tolerance in her soul.

Nina is not in the movie. She is only mentioned throughout the words of Cassie. What happened to her can be understood by the audience. Some movies will have elements of flashbacks. But Promising Young Woman does not use that element. It focuses on the present where Cassie is on the way to revenge for Nina. It can be understood that the past is dead and no way to fix what happened. What Cassie can do is focus on the present, on the reality, on her purposes and it gives her the strength to do what she is doing. That makes this movie special.

Targeting a serious issue

Sexual assault, sexual harassment. There are so many predators getting away with what they did to those innocent girls and women and no one is being punished. The victims have to live in shame, in misery, in darkness and some have killed themselves. Even though it is fiction, but it is also a metaphor for the hidden strength inside each woman. Once it is woken up, there is no turning back. It is the feminist age. They are stronger than ever. They will come and get those sexual predators at any time. Just like in the movie, they are living peacefully on the high thrones, but in the end, Cassie will come and punish them savagely. Promising Young Woman is also a dream for every woman and girl. They wish that laws will stand with them, they wish they can cut off anyone’s dick, they wish they can be notorious like Cassie, and they wish people can hear them. Nobody deserves to be sexually assaulted nor being raped. If those predators cannot keep their dick inside their pants, please neuter it, you pervert.

Promising Young Woman is definitely an important movie of this year. Highly recommended!

“When a woman is assaulted, one of the first questions people ask is, Did you say no? This question assumes that the answer was always yes, and that it is her job to revoke the agreement. To defuse the bomb she was given. But why are they allowed to touch us until we physically fight them off? Why is the door open until we have to slam it shut?”

― Chanel Miller, Know My Name.

Where to watch: HBO Max