This piece contains spoilers of Promising Young Woman, especially the ending. Please, if you have not watched the movie, stop reading this, go watch it and come back.
Have you ever had this fantasy in which you are gone but you get to see the way your loved ones react to your death and legacy? As if you were in a movie and you were the protagonist and the audience at the same time.
This scenario is alluded to in Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell’s debut that embraces a feminist vendetta. Here, Cassandra Thomas (Carey Mulligan) – our main character – goes through a spree of vengeance against those that were involved in or stood idle when former classmate Al Monroe (Chris Lowell) raped Nina, her best friend, during their university days.
Impunity and oblivion have been her only answers. And now, seven years after Nina’s suicide, Cassandra creates a plan to teach a lesson to those that continue victim-blaming her friend. Or giving the benefit of the doubt to predatory and abusive men, while she forgives those that are trying to atone for their acts.
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These lessons, although borderline cruel, are never unethical or illegal. Through hypothetical cases and assumptions, Cassie makes the subjects of her vengeance reflect on their actions when similar things happen to them in a controlled scenario. For example, Madison (Alison Brie) – former friend/classmate – doesn’t remember what happened in a lunch with Cassie after she gets too drunk. Or the university dean (Connie Britton) that gave Al “the benefit of the doubt” deals with the possibility of her daughter being abused by unsupervised college boys. In these scenarios nothing, but a shock, happens.
Things get a little trickier and more violent when Cassie’s vengeance leads her to Al at his bachelor’s party. Dressed as a stripper, Cassie is about to physically attack him when he violently kills her. Later, Al and his best friend burn the body and hide all evidence of the crime.
While we are trying to process this drastic turn of events, it is shown that Cassandra knew that something bad could happen while carrying out the last phase of her scheme. The ending – in which her master plan dawns in every character – is supposed to be the perfect moment of realisation because the final thread of vengeance is weaved.
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This is exactly like that imaginary scenario in which you see your legacy amongst those left behind. Cassie’s legacy is one of vengeance: she prepared a reprisal so intense and calculated that through a couple of text messages delivered to Ryan (Bo Burnham) – her ex-boyfriend – the audience feels as if she were enjoying the destruction she left behind from beyond the grave. Except that she is not. She is dead. And no matter how romantic this idea of omnipresence feels, the reality is that she is gone. And now it depends on the audience to enjoy and celebrate this last feat of cunning payback.
Nevertheless, how are we supposed to feel any sense of fulfilment when a woman is killed? And yet still, by the same man that raped and emotionally tormented her best friend into killing herself seven years before? We now must deal with the deaths of two women. Should we only expect justice for crimes against women through death and martyrdom?
Promising Young Woman successfully portrays the misogynistic environment in which women live. Whether through specific crimes, condescending attitudes towards abuse, or plain examples of impunity. All of this makes Cassandra’s path of micro-vengeance enjoyable and embracing. Of course, these men deserve to be humiliated and exhibited as predators. Of course, the dean should emotionally suffer – even if it is only for a couple of minutes – for the toxic culture she continues to promote. Of course, Al Monroe deserves retaliation and pain.
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Cassandra goes on a personal mission to expose the toxic culture that surrounds her. She constantly makes active decisions that put her life in the line of danger and she skilfully avoids it every time. Why not allow her to go all the way with her plan and even commit a terrible crime in the name of rightful vengeance? Instead, her character is sacrificed in the name of a well-executed gimmick of reveal.
This surprising ending feels more enraging and problematic when we realise that a story of sexual abuse, impunity and vengeance is escalated into one of femicide. One of the most worrying issues of gender-related violence in today’s society.
According to the 2019 Global Study on Homicide: Gender-related killing of women and girls by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 87,000 women were intentionally killed in 2017. Women continue to be lethal victims because of gender stereotypes and inequality. With many perpetrators mutilating their victim’s bodies and disposing them on roadsides or in fields, as illustrated graphically in the movie.
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In most femicide cases, we do not know the specific context of the killings or the scenarios in which they happen. We only know that a man is behind the crime. In Promising Young Woman, the circumstances of Cassandra’s death become irrelevant as she dies violently at the hands of a man. Her motives are also unimportant. What matters is that a man kills her in a fashion that reflects real-life femicides.
As such, it is vital to not romanticise the ending. And instead, understand that she dies as a victim and not as a triumphant vigilante of justice and protector of women. Her death is a tragedy, and it is inconsequential if Al pays for what he did, because taking him to justice required the death of a woman in a context where women are killed without punishment in a daily basis. Or are we supposed to feel relief and trust in the system just because we see that Al is arrested? Have we learned nothing about the privilege of entitled and influential white men?
We can only speculate regarding filmmaker Fennell’s intentions with such a bleak ending. Was it too complicated to give Cassandra a more fulfilling resolution? Maybe it would have been fair to give her a scenario in which she finds a life where her actions are not motivated by disappointment and anger, but by happiness. What about the possibilities that were waiting for her and the taste of happiness she had for an instant? Why were her decisions conditioned to her relationships with men?
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While her motives are powerful because they are real, empathetic, and identifiable by every woman, it feels as if her existence is exclusively linked to the men that ruined her life. Is this the kind of fate that is awaiting women that are constantly abused by men and that dare to expose the rotten system in which we live?
The idea that women can find justice for gender-related crimes only through death is disparaging and disappointing. And more importantly, continues to perpetuate the hostile environment in which we live. I refuse to celebrate this ending as a victory. In a world where women are killed on the basis of their gender, I find this ending unacceptable. We deserve a break, even if it is only in fiction.
