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Promising Young Woman begins with its lead character, Cassandra (Carey Mulligan – The Dig), feeling very drunk in a nightclub, and seemingly unwisely getting a lift back with fellow clubber Jerry (Adam Brody) to his apartment.
You get a feeling she won’t be at all drunk, and that it’s going to get very messy for Jerry as he starts to take advantage of her, after throwing her into his bed, resulting in her asking over and over, “What are you doing?” …before immediately sobering up and is next seen, early morning, with marks of blood on her blouse; followed later by marking her diary with men’s names and 5-bar gates in blue or red depending on the outcome.
This starts the pattern for a film where she’s planning revenge for something in relation to her sister, Nina, but it takes a long time before we get a hint of what Cassie is really capable of when she stalks men, and the film tries to deliver on its promise.
All the while, she looks like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, lives at home with her parents played by Jennifer Coolidge (American Pie) and Clancy Brown (Detroit Become Human), and works in a coffee shop after dropping out of medical school.
A chance encounter with former student Ryan (Bo Burnham – Eighth Grade) feels like it’s going to turn into a standard relationship drama, making you wonder in which direction this movie is attempting to go, since she still has scores to settle at the same time. This sounds like it’s going to turn into Dexter, but it completely misses its mark and never achieves this because it doesn’t know how to play it out.
Overall, Promising Young Woman starts with a fair bit of promise, but then delivers on almost none of it, often feeling like a series of disconnected sceens that don’t go anywhere for longer than a few minutes. There’s barely any coherent storyline on which to hang anything, and why would you want to root for an unlikeable psycho? Plus, as good as Carey Mulligan is in this and most other things, this film is up for Oscars, and I can’t see why.
Promising Young Woman is available now on Amazon Prime Video, and also on Sky Cinema from Friday April 16th, but the film isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
However, you can buy the screenplay on Kindle and Paperback.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 113 minutes
Release date: April 16th 2021
Studio: Focus Features
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 (Dolby Vision, Anamorphic Panavision, ProRes 4444 (2.8K))
Rating: 3/10
Director: Emerald Fennell
Producers: Tom Ackerley, Ben Browning, Emerald Fennell, Ashley Fox, Fiona alsh Heinz, Josey McNamara, Margot Robbie
Screenplay: Emerald Fennell
Music: Anthony Willis
Cast:
Cassandra: Carey Mulligan
Ryan: Bo Burnham
Jerry: Adam Brody
Jim: Raymond Nicholson
Paul: Samuel Richardson
Jordan Green: Alfred Molina (uncredited)
Monty: Timothy E Goodwin
Stanley: Clancy Brown
Susan: Jennifer Coolidge
Gail: Laverne Cox
Al Monroe: Christopher Lowell
Ruby: Alli Hart
Jeff: Loren Paul
Jeff’s Friend: Scott Aschenbrenner
Neil: Christopher Mintz-Plasse
Madison: Alison Brie
Alfred: Gabriel Oliva
Tony: Bryan Lillis
Amber: Francisca Estevez
Jean: Lorna Scott
Dean Walker: Connie Britton
Mrs. Fisher: Molly Shannon
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.