Promising Young Woman (2020)
Posted: Tue Jan 05, 2021 10:57 pm
Kyra Sedgwick stars as a 30 year old woman who dedicates her life to luring men into trying to rape or take advantage of her when she's pretend drunk. Wait... Kyra is married to Kevin Bacon and she's in her 50s or so. Oh, this is Carey Mulligan who is Kyra's clone. She looks just like her. She even looks old enough to be Kyra in certain scenes. Blame the lighting I guess?
Anyway, Carey is phenomenal in her role here. In fact, all the acting is exceptional.
That's where my praise is going to end because wow...writer/director Emerald Fennell might be Gordon's soul mate. This entire thing is a love letter to her obvious hatred/distrust/contempt, or whatever word you want to use, for men. Pro tip for Emerald: You must have at least one male character that is redeemable in a movie where you portray men as inherently evil. If you don't do that, your message gets lost because you're just offending your intended audience. But maybe I'm reading into this all wrong and her intention wasn't to paint all men as evil? In which case, you still need to have one redeeming character or same shit.
Carey's character is singularly focused on her task for reasons that will be explained. The writing is good, despite the aforementioned flaw and the almost comedic timing of the ending, but fuck this is a tough watch.
Think "I Spit on Your Grave", but without the absolute violence or happy ending...
Seriously, this is a feel bad movie. Neither man nor woman will walk away from a viewing in a good mood.
It's a well made and acted movie with an important statement about a serious social topic and how it affects women AND men, but I think the message gets lost by painting all men poorly.
Anyway, Carey is phenomenal in her role here. In fact, all the acting is exceptional.
That's where my praise is going to end because wow...writer/director Emerald Fennell might be Gordon's soul mate. This entire thing is a love letter to her obvious hatred/distrust/contempt, or whatever word you want to use, for men. Pro tip for Emerald: You must have at least one male character that is redeemable in a movie where you portray men as inherently evil. If you don't do that, your message gets lost because you're just offending your intended audience. But maybe I'm reading into this all wrong and her intention wasn't to paint all men as evil? In which case, you still need to have one redeeming character or same shit.
Carey's character is singularly focused on her task for reasons that will be explained. The writing is good, despite the aforementioned flaw and the almost comedic timing of the ending, but fuck this is a tough watch.
Think "I Spit on Your Grave", but without the absolute violence or happy ending...
Seriously, this is a feel bad movie. Neither man nor woman will walk away from a viewing in a good mood.
It's a well made and acted movie with an important statement about a serious social topic and how it affects women AND men, but I think the message gets lost by painting all men poorly.