Movie Review
PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (2020) Review
Cassandra Thomas, Nina Fischer, and Kristin Smart, the girl whose presence has shadowed a small community for decades
Trigger warning: much of this content will focus on sexual assault, as the film’s plot revolves around that topic. If it makes any of this readership uncomfortable, you are more than welcome to skip the article.
Promising Young Woman, the newest take on the rape-revenge trope by Emerald Fennell (currently playing Camilla Parker-Bowles on Netflix’s The Crown), is both timely and timeless. It’s timely because I’m watching this film as Kristin Smart, a local Cal Poly undergraduate student who went missing twenty-five years ago, might finally find justice. And timeless because the presence of assault and violation of women’s bodies has become so common that it’s now just another trope in storytelling.
First, I’ll get people up to speed on who Kristin Smart is and how her case has unfolded slowly over the past two decades. Kristin Smart was a Cal Poly undergraduate student who was walked home after a party. The man who walked her home and who was the last one to allegedly see her alive, was Paul Flores. That was over twenty-five years ago and while he was the prime suspect, he was never charged with a crime. For a more in-depth and comprehensive timeline, I suggest listening to Chris Lambert’s sensationally produced “Your Own Backyard” podcast.
But a few weeks ago everything changed as both Paul and his father, Ruben Flores, were charged with murder and accessory, in large part due to Chris Lambert’s efforts in interviewing witnesses, psychics, and vigilantes while combing through deposition videos and articles. It was not the police that drew more attention to this case, despite their reinvigorated energy in the case a few years back, but one man on a mission.
In Promising Young Woman, we have Cassie Thomas, who just like Chris, has decided to pursue justice. Her approach is a little more…direct. Men see her “drunk” at bars and being the “nice guys” they are, help Cassie get home safe. But it’s the other way around: she’s picking them up. Feigning drunkenness, Cassie lets men lure them back to their places, letting them almost have their way with her (Christopher Mintz-Plasse is in full-on uber creep mode in one scene), until she sobers up in the blink of an eye, catching these so-called “nice guys” off guard and shaming them, hoping they learn from the experience. And the revenge ends there. They might not have done anything but they’ll think twice before taking advantage of a drunk woman, or any woman, again.
A less mature and experienced screenwriter would have Cassie physically dominate, attack, or psychologically torture these men, making the audience feel uneasy and elated at the same time. Instead she does this to teach them a “lesson,” and then leaves shortly after, marking their names in colored ink in a little booklet. And that’s because this is not your typical revenge fantasy, not even until the climactic scene when the revenge fantasy nearly becomes a reality. There is a nuance in Promising Young Woman’s approach to revenge, the awareness of its cyclical nature. By the time we’re introduced to Cassie, we realize she’s been doing this for years, yet she suffers from memory loss, from dissatisfaction, from loneliness. And we understand why: her friend Nina Fischer was sexually assaulted at their school and no one believed her. She was never given justice and the man who assaulted her, Al Monroe, was never held accountable.
By the time the film reaches the climax, Cassie has Al strapped to the bedframe, helpless. It’s at a bachelor party, ironically the last time a man can be “free” before entering marriage. Cassie has spiked the groomsmen’s drinks and they’re located right in the middle of nowhere, secluded from anything resembling society or structure. But the imagery shows us exactly what Nina has been through: helpless, physically incapacitated, scared. This isn’t to create sympathy for Al, but we as an audience have to think: is this what we want and, if it is, do we want this for Nina or for us?
Male and more generally, American audiences, are conditioned to think that violence is the only means of justice and, while justice is finally delivered, it’s at the expense of Cassie’s life. The revenge “fantasy” is just that because Al is physically stronger, breaks free of his restraints, and kills Cassie. I’m reminded of another revenge movie called You Were Never Really Here (2017). Centering around a character named Joe saving a young girl, Nina, from sex trafficking, when he reaches the villains’ lair, and where we expect him to go full-”John Wick,” we’re denied seeing any of it. Nina has already vanquished the villain herself. Instead of a bloody, stylistic climax, we see Joe pull Nina from the potential wreckage that would have been her life. She’s saved, and that’s all matters.
It has become a narrative rule that conflicts are resolved in filmmaking. It can be through violence or non-violence, but either way they must be resolved. The catch is it doesn’t have to be resolved to the audience’s satisfaction. Often times I feel the need for conflicts to be resolved through violence, through some kind of physical action, some visual comeuppance. Because then it feels like you are the one in charge, that you can determine the course of the story. And wouldn’t you pick something familiar to you and your society? (I’m looking at you, America). But in Promising Young Woman, the violence we get is only against women, and it ends on the fantastical note of officers saving the day and arresting Al and the men responsible for Cassie’s death.
So what is justice? What is resolution? What does justice look like in the Kristin Smart case? And look at me now, referring to her as a case instead of a person. Kristin became an idea, a cautionary tale, and a source of pain. For a long time it seemed like she was no longer a person. This new break in the case might change that. Would justice for her mean that Paul and Ruben Flores go to prison for their crimes? And then what? They just rot in a cell for the rest of their lives with no atonement for what they’ve done to the Smart family? Do I feel unsatisfied because I want their punishment to be violent? That I don’t feel like the potential resolution to this case is strong enough? That it doesn’t align with my expectations or the American and male expectations of resolving conflict?
I don’t have the answers, but even with a film like Promising Young Woman taking a look at how violence can be unsatisfying, and how it’s often committed around the non-violent, you have to wonder what justice and accountability really look like. Because there are no Cassie’s or John Wick’s or Joe’s meting out justice against the most vile people out there; hell, there’s not even police officers who do that because more often than not, they are the most vile people in the world. But as someone who grew up on action films, revenge films, and the American ideal that violence equates justice, I think re-thinking how to resolve the pains of the past is where true justice begins.
Promising Young Woman is a powerful debut with a knock-out performance from Carey Mulligan that tethers a sometimes too-comfortable line between what we perceive as justice and what the cost of justice might actually be. But it’ll depend on us now to make a promising future.
Promising Young Woman is available for rental and purchase on Amazon and YouTube.
“Your Own Backyard” is created by Chris Lambert and all episodes are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and the official podcast website: yourownbackyardpodcast.com.
