Promising Young Woman

I saw Promising Young Woman at Sundance this year (that seems like such a long time ago) and it was definitely one of my favorites from the festival so I was really excited to see it again last night now that it is in wide release!  Thirty year old Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan) is still living at home with her parents and working at a dead-end job in a coffee shop.  She is clearly troubled and spends her weekends dressing provocatively, going to bars, pretending to be drunk, and assaulting the men who try to take advantage of her.  It is eventually revealed that her life was derailed by a traumatic incident when she was in medical school and that it caused her to drop out.  It seems that her life has been in limbo ever since but everything changes when she has a chance encounter with Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham), a former classmate.  She begins a relationship with him and starts to take an interest in life again but, when she learns of his involvement in the incident, she becomes intent on exacting revenge.  You think you know where the action is going and then there is a major twist and, while you are still processing what just happened, there is another one (which made the crowd in my screening at Sundance cheer out loud).  It is absolutely brilliant!  I love a good dark comedy and this is a quirky and subversive take on the traditional revenge story.  Carey Mulligan gives one of the best performances of her career as a woman who is broken but also angry.  She is scary when she lashes out against men who seem nice but are not and she shows vulnerability when she finds one who actually is.  All of writer/director Emerald Fennell's choices are so specific and stylized, from the decor in Cassie's house, which seems to belong in another era, to the clothes and hairstyles Cassie wears, which are more appropriate for a teenager, and they serve to emphasize the fact that time has stopped for Cassie and that she can't put the incident behind her.  The needle drops are also incredibly clever, especially "Boys" by Charli XCX, "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)" by Carmen DeLeon, an instrumental version of "Toxic" by Britney Spears, and "Angel Of The Morning" by Juice Newton (in the aforementioned pivotal scene which prompted applause and cheering).  There are some jarring tonal shifts but the whole movie is so audacious that it is best to just go along for the ride.  I loved it and I recommend it to fans of dark comedies.