Promising Young Woman (2020)

[ElectricBoogaloo]

BAFTA award wins!

Best British Film
Best Original Screenplay: Emerald Fennell

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Guild of Music Supervisors award!

Best Music Supervision for Film Budgeted Under $10 Million: Susan Jacobs – “Promising Young Woman”

[SeanC]

5 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Guild of Music Supervisors award!

Best Music Supervision for Film Budgeted Under $10 Million: Susan Jacobs – “Promising Young Woman”

That one is especially deserved — the use of preexisting music in this is aces.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Costume Designers Guild Award win!

Excellence in Contemporary Film
Promising Young Woman – Nancy Steiner

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Spirit Award wins!

Best Female Lead - Carey Mulligan
Best Screenplay - Emerald Fennell

Edited April 23, 2021 by ElectricBoogaloo

[methodwriter85]

On 4/8/2021 at 4:46 PM, Milburn Stone said:

I also found it puzzling that Madison told Cassie "Oh, everyone knew about it, everyone saw the video," and not one single woman or man who saw the video found it troubling enough to report it and corroborate Nina's story. 

I feel like in actual 2013 this would have been news. Like if this were getting passed around at some point it would have been reported. We're talking affluent attractive white kids. The media would have picked up the story.

Edited April 25, 2021 by methodwriter85

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Oscar win!

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY): PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN - Emerald Fennell

[Spartan Girl]

Not gonna lie I feel a little pissed that Carey didn’t win the Oscar!

[Ms Blue Jay]

35 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Not gonna lie I feel a little pissed that Carey didn’t win the Oscar!

Same.  I was rooting for her or Viola.... 

[SeanC]

I'm delighted for Emerald. That was one of the frontrunner wins I was really rooting for.

Sad for Carey.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Acceptance speech

 

[Wiendish Fitch]

Disappointed about Carey Mulligan's loss, but on the bright side, Emerald Fennell took home a statue!

If nothing else, I hope Promising Young Woman's recognition at the Oscars will set Mulligan and Fennell's careers on new and lucrative paths. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Disappointed about Carey Mulligan's loss, but on the bright side, Emerald Fennell took home a statue!

If nothing else, I hope Promising Young Woman's recognition at the Oscars will set Mulligan and Fennell's careers on new and lucrative paths. 

Every time Carey Mulligan does a high profile project, everyone says she's supposed to be the next big thing and then it doesn't quite happen. The people she works with speak highly of her, she's been nominated for big awards (she won a BAFTA for An Education), and she's worked consistently for over a decade but it seems like she's always just on the cusp of becoming an A list star.

[Ms Blue Jay]

Carey's a 2 time Oscar nominee by 35, that's amazing.  And it's not like Jennifer Lawrence where I think it's undeserved.  I think her career has been fantastic so far.  

[Wiendish Fitch]

Oh, I hope I didn't make it sound as if I think Carey Mulligan is hard-up: she's had a nice, steady career so far, and I see no reason why it should collapse any time soon. It's just that her performance in Promising Young Woman might be my favorite of hers (she's also excellent in the little-seen Wildlife), and it was the one performance from 2020 I cared about. Still, I can't begrudge Frances McDormand her win (haven't seen Nomadland yet). 

Emerald Fennell has proven to be a fine actress and kick-ass director, I'm eager to see what she does in the future!

[Ms Blue Jay]

Don't worry, I didn't take it that way at all.

I didn't really "get" "An Education", but Carey has steadily impressed me with every subsequent performance, and I agree with you, I was blown away by her in PYW.  It would have been nice for her to win, but I guess I can't get all my picks, that wouldn't be fair.  😁

[kiddo82]

An Education is a good movie, and Carey Mulligan is good in it, but it's not the type of movie people remember 1, 2, 10 years later.  Promising Young Woman will probably continue to be talked about for the foreseeable future which bodes well for her.  I was really happy that at least Fennell won for her script.  I said this to a friend of mine that I had the same reaction to this movie as I did to Jojo Rabbit, my favorite from 2019.  It's a script that tackles a difficult subject while being legitimately funny without downplaying the severity of what it is trying to subvert.  It hides its message in pitch black humor to make it go down easier.  The degree of difficulty to pull that off seems like it's off the charts.

My head wanted Viola to win and my heart wanted Carey.  I didn't even realize how bad I was rooting for her until Mcdormand's name was called.  And no shade to Frances, who I truly do think is one of the best living actresses on the planet, but I still don't see how she was better than the 4 other ladies in the category.  This may be my hill to die on.

 

[Wiendish Fitch]

56 minutes ago, kiddo82 said:

My head wanted Viola to win and my heart wanted Carey.  I didn't even realize how bad I was rooting for her until Mcdormand's name was called.  And no shade to Frances, who I truly do think is one of the best living actresses on the planet, but I still don't see how she was better than the 4 other ladies in the category.  This may be my hill to die on.

 

Same here. Frances McDormand is a national treasure, but I'm still trying to wash the taste of 3 Billboards and all its undeserved acclaim out of my mouth.

Sorry, but I loathe that movie like you wouldn't believe.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Wiendish Fitch

[Spartan Girl]

4 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Same here. Frances McDormand is a national treasure, but I'm still trying to wash the taste of 3 Billboards and all its undeserved acclaim out of my mouth.

Sorry, but I loathe that movie like you wouldn't believe.

I hear you. Plus Frances doesn’t need THREE Oscars. Just sayin’.

[Wiendish Fitch]

What fresh stupidity is this?

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/05/universal-dubbed-laverne-cox-promising-young-woman-male-actor-1234637089/

 

[Spartan Girl]

1 hour ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

What fresh stupidity is this?

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/05/universal-dubbed-laverne-cox-promising-young-woman-male-actor-1234637089/

 

🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

[lasu]

That is infuriating, not least of all because the character as presented on screen is a cis woman.

For the Oscar wins, I think Carey's performance was good enough to warrant a win.  But this was a crowded season.  I was highly disappointed that neither Saoirse Ronan or Kate Winslet weren't even nominated for Mennonite.  Their performances were excellent, especially Kate, no big shocker there.

While I still have real problems about the ending, this movie really has stayed with me, and I definitely keep coming back to this forum when I see there are new posts, so obviously it got under my skin.

[SunnyBeBe]

So, should I pay to see it?  I keep hoping it will be free to me on Amazon, but not yet.  

[Spartan Girl]

30 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

So, should I pay to see it?  I keep hoping it will be free to me on Amazon, but not yet.  

Renting it is cheaper now, so go nuts.

[StatisticalOutlier]

On 5/20/2021 at 10:06 AM, lasu said:

I was highly disappointed that neither Saoirse Ronan or Kate Winslet weren't even nominated for Mennonite. 

This religious bigotry in Hollywood has got to stop.

[SunnyBeBe]

I rented this movie and for some reason, I wasn’t all that impressed. It wasn’t terrible, but I don’t get award nominations.  I guess it just wasn’t for me.  I wish I liked it more.  I thought it was going to be much darker. I think it would have been better if she was really harming the guys in her little book when she got to their homes. So, she was just insulting or embarrassing them once they got her home.....what did that accomplish?  

[ProudMary]

I finally got to see this film as it's now streaming on HBO Max. It certainly sticks with you, but overall I was somewhat disappointed.

[Spartan Girl]

Did anyone notice how Cassie's face kind of falls when Ryan gives her the address of the bachelor party? It was almost like she was hoping that he'd grow a spine and say, "No, you can ruin my life if you want to, but I'm not going to help you do something that could get you hurt." Because she knew what would probably happen, which is why she had her backup plan ready to go. And yet he forked it over so easily like a coward. You could really see the disappointment and heartbreak in that forced smile she gives when he writes it down; I mean, she was already done with him, but that was probably the final nail in the coffin.

[Ms Blue Jay]

On 5/26/2021 at 9:48 AM, StatisticalOutlier said:

This religious bigotry in Hollywood has got to stop.

LOL, for a second I got excited that a movie about Mennonites was made!

I have now seen "Nomadland".  To be honest, I found Carey's performance a lot more memorable.  Frances's was good but...... I'm hard pressed to remember a lot of it and I saw PYW much longer ago.

Still have to see Viola's movie.

Edited September 29, 2021 by Ms Blue Jay

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 hour ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

LOL, for a second I got excited that a movie about Mennonites was made!

I have now seen "Nomadland".  To be honest, I found Carey's performance a lot more memorable.  Frances's was good but...... I'm hard pressed to remember a lot of it and I saw PYW much longer ago.

Still have to see Viola's movie.

I completely agree. Frances McDormand is great and all, but her performance in Nomadland is... good, but not that memorable (the movie is certainly decent, but damn, it's dry). Carey and Viola, on the other hand, were on fire in their performances, and I will remember them for way longer.

I seriously don't get the Academy most of the time.

[Ohiopirate02]

8 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

I completely agree. Frances McDormand is great and all, but her performance in Nomadland is... good, but not that memorable (the movie is certainly decent, but damn, it's dry). Carey and Viola, on the other hand, were on fire in their performances, and I will remember them for way longer.

I seriously don't get the Academy most of the time.

As much as I cannot wait to see Frances play Lady Macbeth opposite of Denzel, I really am not looking forward to her winning another Oscar.  I love her, but I wish the Academy would spread the love a bit more.  

[Wiendish Fitch]

1 minute ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

As much as I cannot wait to see Frances play Lady Macbeth opposite of Denzel, I really am not looking forward to her winning another Oscar.  I love her, but I wish the Academy would spread the love a bit more.  

 

[Spartan Girl]

I still find it depressing that every single time Cassie played drunk, somebody tried to take advantage instead of actually trying to help her. Which makes what she did to Madison even more messed up because if she had so little faith in men, how did she know the rando she paid off wouldn’t try anything for real?

Unless…he was one of the guys Cassie duped and was now blackmailing into doing her bidding. That would have been an awesome twist, and it would have made it slightly more satisfying for Cassie to keep playing mind games with her would-be rapists instead of just letting them off with a warning.

[FoundTime]

On 4/26/2021 at 4:43 PM, kiddo82 said:

An Education is a good movie, and Carey Mulligan is good in it, but it's not the type of movie people remember 1, 2, 10 years later.  Promising Young Woman will probably continue to be talked about for the foreseeable future which bodes well for her.  I was really happy that at least Fennell won for her script.  I said this to a friend of mine that I had the same reaction to this movie as I did to Jojo Rabbit, my favorite from 2019.  It's a script that tackles a difficult subject while being legitimately funny without downplaying the severity of what it is trying to subvert.  It hides its message in pitch black humor to make it go down easier.  The degree of difficulty to pull that off seems like it's off the charts.

Heh, Kiddo82, I saw An Education at the Best Picture Showcase the year it was nominated (so, 2010), and I still remember it 11 years later. As good as Carey Mulligan is in Promising Young Woman, she stole my heart in An Education and that's what always springs to mind first for me when her name comes up.

Interesting comparison of this screenplay to Jojo Rabbit (which was my second favorite nominee in its year, after Parasite). It also won this category. Maybe the Academy does appreciate that degree of difficulty.

Edited October 13, 2021 by FoundTime
Release dates are not the same as Oscar dates.

[kiddo82]

I was re-watching Under the Skin the other night and it hadn't struck me until then how crazy similar these two movies are.  I mean, there are some obvious differences both in text and subtext, and I don't think Under the Skin was really meant to drive home a feminist message although you can certainly take one away from it, but the plot beats are almost point by point.

It makes me wonder if Emerald Fennell was a fan of the book/movie and drew inspiration from that.

[Black Knight]

On 4/6/2021 at 11:35 AM, benteen said:

I'll go with that.  Cassie wallowed in Nina's death for years, something Nina's mom wanted her to stop doing and something Nina likely would have wanted her to stop doing. 

Would Nina have wanted her to stop doing it? Probably. Would Nina have understood why Cassie couldn't? Absolutely. Because Cassie really just followed in Nina's footsteps and did exactly what Nina did. It just took her a few years longer to die. But Nina couldn't stop any more than Cassie could.

I'm so overdue in watching this movie, but I finally did today after prompted by a friend. I thought the direction was brilliant, as well as all of the acting, and I especially appreciated Fennell's interrogation of the nice-guy and so forth.

Madison has been talked about already, but I'll just add a couple of things I didn't see mentioned yet. First, did other people read what she wrote in her Facebook comment in response to Al's engagement announcement? She wrote how she was so happy for two of her favorite people in the world. Favorite. Ugh. Imagine applying that description to someone like Al after having seen the video. And, when she hands over that video, finally - it's not just that she had it and didn't do anything with it before, it's that she had actually thought it was funny. So I'm not that bothered by what Cassie did to her. I'm comfortable in assuming she had a way of knowing that man she had take Madison to the hotel room could be trusted not to touch her, given how Cassie felt about rape. But Madison certainly needed a gigantic attitude adjustment. Cassie made a point during the lunch of giving Madison a chance to say her thinking was different now than it was then.

I wasn't disappointed by the ending. I appreciated Fennell not wanting to go the path of unrealistic rape revenge fantasies in this film, and to instead treat it seriously. Partly that's because Cassie was so broken that I don't think a happy ending was possible for her. If she had survived, and sent the video around and whatever to ruin Al's life, I think she would have gone back to looking for rapists in bars. And one day she would have gotten killed doing it. (So her parents' outcome, losing their daughter to murder, also would not have been changed.) The kind of catharsis that people who were disappointed by the ending wanted, I don't think that catharsis would have happened even if Cassie'd lived.

I loved Sweet/Vicious (fuck MTV forever for cancelling it after one season), so I've got my rah-rah vigilante-women-beating-up-rapists fantasies covered there for when I'm in the mood.

[SlovakPrincess]

On 11/14/2021 at 8:21 PM, Black Knight said:

Partly that's because Cassie was so broken that I don't think a happy ending was possible for her.

I think this might be one of my huge problems with the movie, though.  It pushes the idea Cassie was so "damaged" her self-sacrifice was inevitable.  Most rape survivors and people who lose a loved one to suicide do, in fact, survive and it's absolutely possible for them to have the happy life and healing they deserve.   

This movie mostly works until the last 15 or so minutes - I'm in the camp of "I was enjoying it and thought it made some important points really well, but the ending ruins the whole thing for me."  Fennel went for a big, splashy shocker, not to mention

Spoiler

a long, drawn out brutal murder and gruesome body disposal of a character we're invested in at that point

and it's just like ... huh?!   And because the little plot-resolution bow she ties on at the end is not realistic, it forces you to think of all the other plot holes.  For instance:

- What was she actually doing to the guys from bars?  Just lecturing them? What on earth was the plan for the lawyer before he repented?  If your movie's about revenge, you do have to decide what the mode of revenge is going to be: we only see it with respect to the dean, Madison, and Al.

- Her plan for Al was never going to work and she should have just released the video (we could have had some interesting debate over whether posthumously sharing these images of Nina was justified to ruin Al's life, but it would have made way more sense).  

- The idea that any of these people would be too afraid to report Cassie to the police because of their own past guilt is pretty naive.  The dean, Madison, Al (if she'd successfully maimed him), the other men to the point she did anything physical to them ... most of them would have felt perfectly justified labeling her a crazy liar and the cops would've believed them in most cases.  

- Cassie's "back-up" revenge (

Spoiler

I think she knew her death was possible, but hoped to survive) really depends on Al and Joe being dumb enough to dispose of her body poorly, the lawyer receiving her mailing in time and being believed by the cops, and the cops making an arrest on his wedding day.

 Which is completely unbelievable.     

Edited January 15 by SlovakPrincess