Promising Young Woman ( film 2020)

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Star – Carey Mulligan My Rating *** Genre – Drama Run Time – 113 Minutes. Certificate – 18 Country – U.S.A Oscars – 1 win from 5 nominations. Awards – 108 Wins & 169 Nominations = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Just as Hollywood white guilt reacted to the Black Lives Matter movement with a volley of angry black films getting Oscars they are starting to do it with #metoo stuff, angry feminist movies all the rage. This is no Base Moi but a lot of critics raved about Promising Young Woman because of that guilt so here we are with an Oscar for this dark comedy about sexual abuse, first time director Emerald Fennell putting $10 million dollars to good use by winning Best Original Screenplay here. She is a feminist but not a lesbian. It’s a good time to bring out movies like this with The Academy so accommodating. To be fair it is a well written screenplay and she deserved the Golden Statue. ===The Cast=== Carey Mulligan as Cassandra "Cassie" Thomas Bo Burnham as Ryan Cooper Alison Brie as Madison McPhee Clancy Brown as Stanley Thomas Jennifer Coolidge as Susan Thomas Laverne Cox as Gail Chris Lowell as Alexander "Al" Monroe Connie Britton as Dean Elizabeth Walker ===Plot=== Every Friday night attractive 30-year-old Cas (Carey Mulligan) goes to bars and clubs, pretends to be drunk to lure men over who offer to get her home safely and then when they try to take advantage of her she puts them in their place by revealing she is not drunk and tries to humiliate them for taking advantage of her. She doesn’t trust men and out to get them, all triggered by her time in law school which she dropped out from after her best friend was sexually abused there by a gang of college students. Cas still lives with her parents and works in a coffee shop by day. Her life is about to be centered when she falls for preppy clean cut customer Ryan Cooper (Bo Burnham), a kids doctor at a local hospital. But Cas still crashes on with her vendetta against those who raped her friend, something she just can’t let go. But when a video of the assault surfaces her life is about to receive another electric shock of pain and betrayal. ===Results=== Yes it’s a man hating movie but it sets out to be one, to wind up men to the point where they actually contemplate their actions around drunken women. In a court of law in a sexual assault type case, if the women is drunk she is considered incapable of making decisions or able to defend herself whereas the alleged offending man has been drinking he is not afforded the same mitigation, and so alcohol the number one witness for prosecution. But with the growth of social media and recorded text messages used in court cases, or the decision to have a trial, there has been a dramatic collapse in rape trials as women either refuse to let police rifle through their digital private life to help their case or they drop out knowing those messages either cast doubt over their case or show them to be promiscuous. It remains a very difficult crime to prosecute, regardless, unless a gang of college kids film it, this kind of crime a big problem in universities where young middle - class kids are under pressure to party hard and lose their virginity. Carey Mulligan looks great on screen with her trim figure and power blonde hair as she picks off the rather two dimensional sexist males one-by-one. The twist is fairly obvious but again part of the films message that all men are b*******s and it’s in their DNA. In reality as many women are messed up and devious around sex as men are in my experience. Sex is power and who doesn’t want power? Beautiful young women will marry old fat rich guys but never the other way around. Compromise is women’s biggest enemy. The point in the film is made by a university dean that if young women get drunk and incapable then they expose themselves to more risk from men and society in general. You don’t try to cross a busy road in heavy traffic. It’s well written with some caustic commentary on sexual politics but I would not say it’s an Oscar winning film so much but a polemic against men that was due in the current climate. All the guys are two dimensional losers and all the women strong and opinionated. It’s funny in places and shocking in others, the knee on the neck scene a bit over the top. Women will probably get a lot more from the film than I did as they have to put up with this stuff everyday but I still don’t think men are as bad with women as feminist make out, the lack of making out with handsome men ,feminists problem, me thinks. ===RATINGS=== Imdb.com 7.5 /10.0 (97,234votes) Rottentomatos.com –90% critic’s approval Metacritic.com – 75% critic’s approval ===Trailer===