Promising Young Woman

Carey Mulligan is nothing short of sensational as a one-time med student reduced to slinging coffee in Emerald Fennell’s (Killing Eve‘s executive producer) brilliant pitch-black comic thriller. Cassie’s candy-colored nails and ultra-feminine daywear suggest a budding Stepford wife, but her acerbic wit and a shocking nighttime hobby mark her as a furious femme fatale. Her rage and her diminished circumstances are inextricably intertwined with a long-ago trauma, made fresh when she reconnects with former classmate Ryan (Bo Burnham). The reunion focuses Cassie’s anger, prompting a mission to confront her past. Fennell’s screenplay is ingenious in keeping the audience off-balance, the tone shifting with Cassie’s mercurial moods in a provocative film tailor-made for the #MeToo era.

“‘Promising’ is indeed the word for Emerald Fennell in the wake of her startling debut feature as a writer-director with Promising Young Woman. Starting with what initially looks like a commonplace story of a thirty-something woman who needs to get her act together and then taking it to entirely unexpected extremes dramatically and thematically, the British writer/director/actress shows real nerve and skill both as a storyteller and commentator on contemporary dynamics between women and men.” –Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter