Directed by Emerald Fennell. Reviewed by Paul Sorrell

I found it difficult to set about reviewing this film as, while it has all the trappings of a Hollywood psychological thriller, including the requisite twists and turns of the plot, it also deals with the serious and troubling theme of rape.

The crime that underlines the action occurred on a medical school campus where Nina, best friend of protagonist Cassie (played by British actress Carey Mulligan), is raped at a party by a college jock while his drunken friends watch on. (The film emphasises that alcohol is a major factor in sexual assault, especially among young people.) In what follows, several of her former student peers, and even the college dean (a middle-aged woman), are drawn into Cassie’s elaborate scheme to take revenge for Nina.

As the movie begins, we watch an apparently drunken Cassie in a downtown bar, alone and vulnerable. A well-dressed young man, professing concern for her, literally picks her up, takes her to his apartment and begins seducing her. However, he is in for a big surprise. Cassie repeats this exercise, aimed at showing that “nice guys” can so easily switch to being sexual predators, many times, as her notebook of “conquests” attests.

Nina’s fate changed Cassie’s life in so many ways. She dropped out of med school, works in a coffee shop and lives at home with her parents, who are baffled by her lack of interest in partners and career. When she starts going out with Ryan, a former student colleague and now a successful pediatrician, their hopes rise – and so do ours, as this relationship seems to be spontaneous and genuine.

But things turn increasingly sour and menacing as a vengeful Cassie homes in on her real target, Al Monroe, Nina’s rapist. What happens next, and then after that, is totally unexpected and shocking, and nothing would induce me to reveal it here!

An accusation of rape can spell the end of a man’s career, or the beginning of an ongoing, lifelong agony for a woman. Both these positions are canvassed here, although the emphasis is placed vehemently on the suffering of the female victim.

So, is Promising Young Woman a feminist tract or a Hollywood entertainment – a standard thriller with an overlay of black comedy and even a dash of romcom? See it and decide for yourself.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 257 March 2021: 28