Emerald Fennell’s debut novel, Promising Young Woman, was controversial, and with every reason. In fact, the word “schism” is not entirely correct. Since its release in 2020, Promising Young Woman has become a lightning rod for heated discussion, a far cry from the enthusiastic initial reception that earned it five Oscar nominations and one Oscar.
Much of this radioactivity is the result of Fennell’s tendency to push buttons (a habit I defended earlier this year ). But in Promising Young Woman , about a directionless 30-year-old Cassie (Carey Mulligan) who spends her spare time pursuing cosmic justice for her late best friend Nina, whose death was the byproduct of a brutal sexual assault — the discourse is understandable. Fennell wanted the audience to feel uncomfortable from the start. To establish this uncomfortable atmosphere, Fennell crafts a film that shifts from hopeful to despairingly bleak in the blink of an eye.
Fennell’s acerbic rape-revenge film is as brutal as it is brutal. As Salon described it at the time, it was a feel-bad movie, fitting for the #MeToo era. While Cassie’s extracurricular activities echo this cultural reflection, a certain distance suggests that Promising Young Woman is more about protection than justice. Revisiting the film through this lens offers many important nuggets of wisdom that its detractors were quick to dismiss. But sadly, this reassessment comes at the expense of another woman’s safety.
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Over the past two weeks, Cornell has faced a very public and very brave resistance, similar to the one Cassie attempted to mount on Promising Young Woman . The uproar came courtesy of four exemplary student journalists at the college’s newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun, who published the names of seven male students named by an anonymous John Doe in a lawsuit against the university. The plaintiff claimed that in 2024, she was forced to drug and gang-raped by seven fraternity members at a party at the school’s Chi Phi fraternity.
A distance suggests that Promising Young Woman is more about protection than justice. Revisiting the film through this lens offers many important nuggets of wisdom that its detractors were quick to dismiss. Sadly, this reassessment comes at the expense of another woman’s safety.
Soon after, Jane Doe reported the incident to Cornell police and led the school’s formation of a sexual assault task force and an internal investigation. Although students were warned about the allegations, they never received the results of the school’s investigation. On September 16, nearly two years after the initial report, Jane Doe filed a lawsuit against Cornell University. The Cornell Daily Sun, which had followed the case from the beginning, made the bold decision to publish the names of all seven defendants in a front-page editorial titled “Cornell Won’t, We Will.”
The editorial immediately sparked national attention, placing Cornell and Greek life—a subject that has long been closely scrutinized for its hypermasculine culture that promotes sexual assault—in the public spotlight. With numerous discrepancies, a shocking lack of clarity in Cornell’s system (despite the school issuing a shocking FAQ), and the local district attorney re-examining the case, the rigor of Cornell’s Title IX investigation now looks shaky at best. In just two weeks, Jane Doe, the brave staff of the Cornell Daily Sun, and thousands of outraged students and viewers across the country turned their attention to Ithaca, New York, in the hope that this case would finally lead to real change.
This is what protecting each other looks like. Safeguarding is not just about what we do for each other before tragedy strikes, but also how we respond in the days, weeks, months and years that follow.
It’s no surprise, then, that Promising Young Women has returned to the conversation surrounding what’s going on at Cornell University. A few years before the film was shot, Cassie dropped out of medical school, wallowing in regret and later grief. Memories of Nina and the attack permeate every corner of campus, exacerbated by the dean’s (Connie Britton) choice not to investigate or discipline Nina for her assault. This movie is not just about justice; It’s about those who stand in the way of it. The incompetence of teachers directly echoes the Cornell case. But, then again, so are Cassie’s greater efforts.
Cassie isn’t just out for revenge, she wants to embarrass her would-be attackers and rid them of their misogyny, however briefly. She wanted to scare them directly into not touching another woman without her consent. Cassie understands that this may be an exercise in futility, especially in the grand scheme of the patriarchy. But it’s not just something she can do for Nina, it’s something she can do for every other vulnerable woman.
Before we go any further, though, I should make it clear that I don’t disagree with the idea that comparing real-life rape allegations to Fennell’s film is in bad taste. My intention here isn’t to say, “Hey, this unspeakable event is making headlines now? Like that movie!” My goal is to use existing comparisons to re-examine Promising Young Woman , to try to understand Fennell’s intentions, and to examine the bleak truths that her film confronts. If you don’t like or even hate this movie, I won’t try to invalidate your feelings. I just think it’s important to understand art – especially controversial art about relevant crises – on a cellular level to understand what it and our response to it can teach us.
Rewatching the film for the first time in six years this week, I was caught off guard. Reputation is a funny thing – it can easily subconsciously skew a person’s perception, even if we try to be impartial. I remember finding “Promising Young Woman” contemplative. However, the continued post-Oscar backlash and general friction surrounding Fennell convinced me that I was overestimating it. But this isn’t a movie that people jump at the chance to rewatch just to be inspired.
But I would say we’ve reached a point where it’s worth the effort. Promising Young Woman is not a compare-and-contrast film, with an overly didactic moralizing that encourages the viewer to say, “Ah, yes, now I understand rape culture.” Here, Fennell asserts that rape culture is our culture, with patriarchy and misogyny seeping through every crack in the surface. After facing the most brutal consequences, Cassie’s rose-tinted glasses were removed, trampled, ground to a pulp, and burned to ashes. Even if life gave her a glimmer of comfort or happiness, that part was rotten from the inside out. The rot hasn’t shown yet.
Take, for example, the dichotomy between the self-righteousness that spreads like a virus among young people and the cautious actions taken by the staff of The Cornell Daily Sun. Egoism is prevalent in our modern world, and only those brave enough to stand up to it can stop its reign.
While Cassie pretends to be drunk at a bar to trick a predator into taking her home, she learns that one of Nina’s rapists, Al (Chris Lowell) – now a successful doctor – is getting married. Seeing Al prosper while Nina’s memory fades is enough to drive Cassie into a full-blown vigilante career, and through complicity in Nina’s death. During her search, Cassie discovers a cellphone video of Nina being beaten, which her former classmate Madison (Alison Brie) reluctantly hands over to her. “I don’t know how we saw this and everyone thought it was funny,” Madison admitted.
This aspect reflects a horrifying contemporary pattern reflected in the Cornell University case, in which alleged Snapchat posts from the Chi Phi house were introduced as evidence. Social media feeds into the narcissistic masculinity that already exists among many men and is pervasive in fraternity life. In a recent article discussing her take on the “burnerverse”—a male social media subculture that seeks to exploit young women—Wired senior writer EJ Dickson explains the connection between social media and abuse.
“Sexual assault has always been an issue; ‘boys will be boys’ has always been an issue,” Dixon wrote. “What’s new is Protagonist Syndrome. It’s a complete lack of respect for others and a tendency to build a narrative about yourself around yourself as a ketamine-snorting, party-hard Zyn bro who doesn’t care about anyone but yourself.”
Take, for example, the dichotomy between the self-righteousness that spreads like a virus among young people and the cautious actions taken by the staff of The Cornell Daily Sun. Egoism is prevalent in our modern world, and only those brave enough to stand up to it can stop its reign. Cassie’s methods may be unorthodox, but she’s keen to remind people that someone is always watching her. Her approach was to humiliate and expose, but not always deliver justice. As Fennell reminds us towards the end of the film, justice – if it comes at all – often comes too late and at the cost of too many lives.
I won’t spoil the ending here, which is the film’s most common point of divergence. It’s certainly alienating and gloomy. But I think Fennell’s purpose is to inspire thought and action, not outrage. No traditional notion of justice, whether prison justice or social justice, can reverse the harm that has been done. Considering these problems continue to worsen six years after the film’s release, the conclusion is actually bleak. Failure to do so is a fallacy, a dream of a world we do not live in and may never live in.
But there is hope in the darkness. The film’s power lies in its commentary on the magnitude of third-degree harm caused by sexual assault. It’s not just the survivors who are left to pick up the pieces, but also the people who loved and cared for them. The consequences are anything but simple, and Promising Young Woman is so troubling that it only proves that there’s no easy way to make sense of things that don’t make sense. The most we can offer is our voices, actions and constant vigilance; together rejecting ignorance and demanding responsibility as a community. That’s Fennell’s challenge: When the going gets tough, when the pain is gratuitous, don’t turn the other cheek, don’t let the heart-wrenching horror slip away. Do something, anything. And then do more.
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