Promising Young Woman (2020) We thought for sure we'd end up lavishing praise all over this movie.
How could it miss? Offering a meaty, take-no-prisoners role to that always amazing actress, Carey Mulligan.
How could it miss? Casting a viciously sardonic eye on one of the most hot button issues of this millennium, the physical abuse and assault on women by entitled men protected by centuries of our culture's ingrained patriarchy.
How could it miss? With numerous scenes of would be date rapists (and assorted female apologists and enablers) utterly humiliated by Mulligan, who feigns drunkenness to lure and entrap singles bar assholes into molesting her.
Clever? Yes. Darkly funny? You bet. Plenty of scenes where you cringe and laugh at the same time? Absolutely.
So how come we don't love this movie?
Simple. Mulligan digs deep into this character with a dazzling complex performance. And the movie doesn't work anywhere near as hard as she does. We've never seen a film so completely unworthy of its lead actress.
Unlike Mulligan, who peels off every raw layer of a damaged woman obsessed with revenge, the movie itself settles for being slick, funny and and its finale, clever in the most show-offy way imaginable.
Throughout its running time, the film forces you suspend all disbelief, as Mulligan's various vengeful scams on her more than deserving victims are always flawlessly executed (sometimes even leaving the poor suckers whimpering in debasement.)
And it gets worse.
In its final scenes, "Promising Young Woman" discards Mulligan and all the exceptional work she's put into the film in order to arrive at its capricious controversial twists.........as if the only thing on its mind was coming up with an Agatha Christie 'gotcha!' wrap-up.
Sure, it's a dexterous, adroit way to end the film. And if the lead role had been taken by a merely competent actress whose work aligned more with the film's snarky level, then this climax wouldn't seem to unsatisfying to us.
But they didn't have a merely competent actress. They had Carey Mulligan, who went so far above and beyond this film's limited goals, it makes that big twist look cheap, pathetic and not up to her level of achievement.
Instead of the emotional impact that the film might've given, it's content with a facile finish that reeks of an episode of the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV show.
For Mulligan's performance alone, which deserves to be seen regardless of the film's deficiencies, 3 stars (***)
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