In Defense of Promising Young Woman

This is the case for Promising Young Woman. There will be spoilers and there will be mentions of assault and suicide.

At the end of this movie, you should not feel happy. You should not feel relief. You should not feel liberated. This is not a movie I would put on casually, but it is a movie I will never forget and will remain potentially in my top movies.

Promising Young Woman’s trailer led me to believe I was signing up for a slasher, revenge film, where a survivor was going after predators… and well… you can guess the rest. This is not that movie. Instead of typical masculine revenge that relies heavily on physical violence and binary choices of good and bad, Cassie (the main character played by Carey Mulligan) relies on the morality of those she comes into contact with. She makes questionable choices herself, which we will discuss, and the ending really underscores that this is not a revenge movie. I would recommend looking up a synopsis if you have not seen the movie.

Cassie is a survivor. Let us be very clear from the forefront. Is she the survivor of the main assault? No, it was her childhood friend and med school classmate, Nina, who was the primary victim. We learn through conversations that Cassie and Nina were basically sisters they were so close, meaning Cassie went through everything with Nina from the assault up until she completed suicide. This is one of the major points of contention people have, but trauma does not fit into a box or stop with one person. Cassie is a secondary survivor of everything that happened with Nina and a primary survivor of every “trap” she sets. So let us not gatekeep trauma as I have seen some critics do. This movie is not about revenge for Nina, it is about Cassie’s isolation and anger at being gaslight by the world and watching her friend die because of it.

Her plan is set in motion when she starts dating Ryan (played by Bo Burnham), an old classmate who comes to the cafe she works at. But it is not him specifically that causes her downward spiral, it begins when he mentions Al Monroe (played by Chris Lowell). Al Monroe is her best friend’s perpetrator. After this, we see very unethical decisions that we should not agree with. She tricks the old dean of her school into thinking she kidnapped her daughter. Cassie goes to lunch with one of her old classmates, keeps ordering drinks, and then sends her old classmate up to a room where she blacks out and wakes up with a man in the room. We find out later Cassie was manipulating her classmate into thinking that the random man assaulted her. He did not. These are horrible acts. We should not convince ourselves otherwise, and this movie is not asking us to. She takes these extreme steps because she tries to talk to everyone about what happened to Nina and they all pretend it did not happen or come up with excuses. The university official even saying “we get these accusations all the time, it’s hard to remember.”

This is the reality. This the reality. This is the reality.

Eventually, she gets ahold of the original video of Nina’s assault and finds out her current partner Ryan was there for the party, the video, and the assault and did nothing. Enact the final plan. Cassie learns where Al Monroe’s bachelor party is being held through Ryan, who she longer no cares for. I will not go into all the details but Cassie confronts Al and gets the typical “I did not do it”, “I’m a nice guy” response. And then… he smothers her and party-goers eventually burn her body to hide the evidence. She knew she was never going to make it out alive.

Cassie tries to reconcile with people but no one budges. Everyone talks about how fantastic Al is and that Nina was probably just embarrassed. Words that have oozed from the mouths of counselors, investigators, friends, family, and anyone else sexual assault survivors interact with. The only person ready for their reckoning was the lawyer that helped Al, which if more lawyers acted like him the justice system would be a bit better (it is still totally f***ed though).

Most of the critics I have read completely miss the point of the movie and instead of acknowledging the complexity of trauma and different outlets of healing, unhealthy and healthy, the critics limit their scope and create criteria for a good survivor. And the absolute worse way to comment on this movie is to compare it to other sexual assault stories and say one did it better because this in turn grossly and misguidedly puts assault stories at war and reinforces respectability politics.

The film is nuanced in a way only 90s and early 2000s TV and movie lovers might notice. All of the men that attempted to assault Cassie when she fakes intoxication… they are all nice guys from TV shows and movie many of us love. This type of commentary is necessary because a guy might be nice, kind, or even label himself a feminist but these boys and men can still enact violence. Along with the casting choices, the aesthetic of the film is bright and Instagram-able emphasizing that it or we may be pretty on the outside but have our demons on the inside.

I do not care if you do not like the movie. I do not think everyone should even watch the movie because it might be retraumatizing for some, especially because, in the end, the only reason Al is arrested is after two women die because of his actions. This is a hard pill to swallow and realistically could lead to an investigation because there is a video of a white woman being assaulted and a murder of another white woman. When we talk about sexual violence we cannot ignore how it disproportionately affects Black women and other women of color, disabled people, poor people, and people in the LGBTQIA+ community.

At the end of the day, I do not expect a lot of people to “like” this movie because many of us are not willing to accept the all-encompassing role sexual violence plays and the realities and messiness of trauma and attempts at understanding what happened. I, however, will not accept comments on how survivors are “suppose to respond” or that “eye for an eye will leave everyone blind.” As stated trauma can fundamentally change the way someone responds and it is in no way appropriate to tell a victim or survivor how they should move forward-- if they even can.

This is not a revenge story. Cassie is not a hero. This is the reality.

Please reach out if you are struggling. Our email is available as well.

National Domestic Violence Hotline - 1.800.799.SAFE (7233)

thehotline.org

RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) 800.656.HOPE (4673)

online.rainn.org

rainn.org/es