Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 03:50:54 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Promising Young Woman

Started by zomgmouse, January 25, 2021, 01:34:43 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

popcorn


Back to the topic, just gonna entrust my contingency plan from beyond the grave to this unstable stranger who just had a psychotic break to follow my instructions, call the police, get them out to this wedding immediately, all their best officers, two detectives right on the case of this woman who's been missing for like a day. They'll know who to arrest. Tell them to look for a pile of smoking ash. Letter ends "please also can you send three text messages to my ex boyfriend right at the point when the police are arresting his mate, that would be a proper gotcha lol, cheers xxx, cassie the friendly ghost".

C_Larence

I don't think it was even the lawyer texting them, it said they were "scheduled messages"!

GoblinAhFuckScary

Need to watch. I've been told I look like Carey Mulligan so gotta support the doppelgänger

It's one of those movies I really enjoyed, but also did my head in at how stupid it could be.

The movie's full of stupid contradictions that they should have picked up on. Like if your main character is a slacker that will deliver lines like "If I wanted a boyfriend, and a yoga class, and a house, and kids, and a job my mom could brag about, I'd have done it. It would take me 10 minutes. I don't want it", try not to cast someone with a ripped body that looks like they do a lot of yoga or just drop the "and a yoga class" bit.

I liked this, but the ending
Spoiler alert
was too silly. Did she go there expecting to be murdered?
[close]

popcorn

Quote from: thecuriousorange on April 02, 2021, 11:14:02 PM
I liked this, but the ending
Spoiler alert
was too silly. Did she go there expecting to be murdered?
[close]

Don't think so, it was a backup plan.

Dr Rock

I thought this was fucking fantastic. I was
Spoiler alert
really upset when she was killed
[close]
, but then I figured that
Spoiler alert
the video
[close]
was still around and
Spoiler alert
avenge her/complete her mission from the grave.
[close]

I find the criticisms here nitpicky, and the people who wrote them are poopyheads.


13 schoolyards

Quote from: popcorn on April 07, 2021, 01:05:19 AM
Here is a damning review which I agree with: https://ayeshaasiddiqi.substack.com/p/id-like-this-to-stop-praise-for-a

That's an excellent review.

I feel like there's a divide with this film between people who think this film's teasing, self-focused approach is the right way to address a deeply serious and complex real world issue, and people who want their movies to be cathartic fantasies who think the dudes here get off way too lightly for it to be enjoyable.

Personally I found it eventually unsatisfying as a fantasy, and unrealistic seen as anything else - though it did do an excellent job of capturing a certain kind of mood where taking real action against a shitty situation seems impossible but putting up with it any longer is unbearable.

Dr Rock

Quote from:  that reviewthe film offers no thrills. What it does do is punish women, absolve men, and let the cops handle the rest.


Really?

popcorn

She gives the rapists a very stinging telling off. The lawyer's fine though.

Dr Rock

She scares the shit out of them. Maybe they'll think twice next time. Or she could've murdered them. I wouldn't have minded if she killed them, but it would have been a very different film putting her in a less defensible moral position. And we've had plenty of rape revenge movies like that. The movie shows women can be complicit in the culture of not believing rape victims, and the lawyer seems haunted and repentant, even though he's arguably less culpable as he was doing his job.

If he had been not been genuinely sorry and stopped defending rapists, what about that guy outside the house she tells isn't needed. Seems like he was in for some physical violence in that case, something she avoided with her other victims.

El Unicornio, mang

I can't get behind that review at all.

QuoteI wanted to see men die, which is what the trailer teased, and why I'd been eagerly anticipating the film long before its release.

Really? It would just make it another Death Wish, Harry Brown, I Spit on Your Grave etc revenge film about the bad guys being killed horribly by the good guys. Rather than a satire on how men, sometimes the "nice" men who are people's friends and kids and doctors, in real life get away with this kind of thing all the time (although in this case there is some justice) and women are physically overpowered even when they're a "badass" (as the reviewer said).

phantom_power

Yeah to me the fate of the men is entirely secondary. Them dying would add nothing to what the film was saying and would probably harm the message as she would be a less relatable character. Fighting against toxic masculinity by aping it doesn't seem the best idea.

Also, those revenge films like Death Wish treat killing so lightly in comparison to its real life effects. It would make the ending less impactful in my view, to normalise death and killing so much from the outset that what happens at the end doesn't pack as much of a punch

Dr Rock

I wonder how it would likely play out after that ending. Johnny Rapist could claim it was self-defence, she handcuffed him to the bed and was going to stab him (I think she was going to carve Nina's name into him maybe a few times, but not kill him). But there won't be any evidence of that. And if it was self-defence you're still not supposed to burn the body and not tell anyone.

At a trial I imagine it would come out what Cassie has been up to - and she hadn't physically harmed anyone previously. I think the tape would be admissible, and presumably it's damning enough that he raped her. Dr Bo who was filming it might testify it was rape, I dunno. But he could get off with manslaughter in self-defence(or whatever that is called) if a jury believes his story. He might get off any rape charges too. But presumably that video will ruin his and everyone in its reputation to some degree.

Or am I forgetting something, probably am.

Listen up, movie fans. Here's the camomile:

It is very good.

What? You want more than that? Uggghhkhhkhh:


Spoiler alert
Apart from the beginning, where I realised the first guy was going to turn out to be a dick, it was pretty unpredictable. I really did NOT expect, when she turned up at the bachelor party, that she was going to die. (The build up to that, by the way, with the way that she looks, and the violin 'remake' of Toxic playing - is the coolest scene in cinema history. That is literally a fact that no one can dispute, so don't even bother, sweetie.) I was expecting REVENGE; something like what we saw in Fincher's 'GirlDragTatt'.

Instead what we got was a fantastic, and seemingly realistic, death* scene (normally when people get choked in films, it takes about four seconds; and the person who does it doesn't seem to have any human emotions). Instead of a 'WOOH SHE REALLY KICKED THE SHIT OUT OF HIM!' type 'catharsis', we got a shock; we got something real. (And we eventually got 'catharsis' in the form of wedding day handcuffs. Which is probably better. And kinkier sounding.)

So...

I really like how this film manages to mix 'realism' with a kind of 'superhero' quality. When she struts up to that house, she is a superhero. But a 'superhero' film cannot give us such a brilliant and nuanced ending, because the hero never dies, and the villain doesn't cry.**



*A fantastic death? Are you sick? Actually it was a reference to a line from this, so shut up.
**I haven't seen every 'superhero' film ever - if you can recommend one that disproves what I just wrote, go for it. (I'm including shit like James Bond when I say 'superhero'. Probably even Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which is Daniel Craig's best James Bond film.)
[close]



(I turned that review off after about a paragraph, but it seems to be saying: 'RUBBISH! THIS FILM DIDN'T GO WHERE I WANTED/EXPECTED IT TO GO!!!' Well, yeah - that's one reason why it's a good piece of art. The film you wanted already existed. This one didn't.)

popcorn

Quote from: Scarlet Intangible on April 07, 2021, 01:12:49 PM
RUBBISH! THIS FILM DIDN'T GO WHERE I WANTED/

I always find this such an odd counter-criticism. Isn't this what criticism basically is? "I didn't like X, and here's why"?

No, you're a nit-picking poopyhead if you dare to criticise this amazing piece of art.

That substack review is on point, this is a film that is tailor made for thinkpieces and awards season coverage, and it will be almost totally forgotten within 18 months

13 schoolyards

It seems reasonable to suggest a movie focused on #metoo that relies on
Spoiler alert
the cops to sort things out
[close]
is a little muddled.




El Unicornio, mang

Spoiler alert
I'm not sure it's really the cops sorting it out though, more her having to go to all the effort to get the perpetrators gift wrapped and delivered to them on a plate.
[close]

GoblinAhFuckScary

they should call her patronising young woman xD

#53
I watched it again last night and I have completely changed my mind:

Spoiler alert
She doesn't 'strut' in that scene - she just walks normally.
[close]



Quote from: popcorn on April 07, 2021, 01:26:43 PM
I always find this such an odd counter-criticism. Isn't this what criticism basically is? "I didn't like X, and here's why"?


Is all criticism of the same standard?

Would a good critic criticise something because it doesn't stick to a 'template'?

Would a good critic criticise something for subverting their expectations? (Which is exactly what the film does - very intentionally, and very well.)

---

Spoiler alert
I can understand where they are coming from though - as I watched I wanted her to get revenge. When she was being choked I wanted her to get out of it. But I think that, artistically, there can be more merit in not giving the audience what they want.

Let's say the film ends with the revenge we all wanted. Good. There is some satisfaction in that. But we would miss out on quite a few things:

The guy who commits murder, in a panicked frenzy - who can't believe how far he just went to protect his 'life'; then the guy who helps cover it all up, 'convincing' his friend that he did nothing wrong. We would miss out on the police officer who disinterestedly questions the doctor, having already made up his mind that the woman is kind of 'unstable' (because of what her father said) - when it is quite clear that the doctor is displaying signs of guilt/discomfort.

What we see is a whole load of men getting away with shit/misperceiving things/covering up for each other, which I think, ultimately, is an ending with far more depth than if she'd have got her revenge. (It's notable that the guy is only caught because of her foresight, too. Without her strategic thinking, he would have got away with it, it seems.)
[close]



Quote from: 13 schoolyards on April 07, 2021, 02:11:54 PM
It seems reasonable to suggest a movie focused on #metoo that relies on
Spoiler alert
the cops to sort things out
[close]
is a little muddled.


Spoiler alert
Is that definitely what it does?

Why did she go to the bachelor party for revenge, rather than take the rape footage to the police?

Why is that one police officer presented as quite clueless, as well as unsympathetic towards a missing woman?

(And remember - the police catch the guy for murder, not for rape.)
Spoiler alert
[close]
[close]

C_Larence

Quote from: Scarlet Intangible on April 08, 2021, 01:36:14 PM
Spoiler alert
Is that definitely what it does?
Spoiler alert

[close]
[close]
Yes, it quite literally is. The movie wants to have its cake and eat it, subverting the catharsis of a woman getting revenge, but not allowing the man to get away with it either. However, the movie (and real life lol) show that what happens next is likely the man gets a good lawyer and escapes with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: C_Larence on April 08, 2021, 02:53:15 PM
However, the movie (and real life lol) show that what happens next is likely the man gets a good lawyer and escapes with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

For murder? In Ohio (where the film is set) the main guy would more likely end up on death row.

C_Larence

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on April 08, 2021, 03:08:34 PM
For murder? In Ohio (where the film is set) the main guy would more likely end up on death row.

If the system worked, which it demonstrably doesn't multiple times in the movie.

chveik

haven't watched it but that lawyer asking for forgiveness idea is ludicrous.

13 schoolyards

Quote from: Scarlet Intangible on April 08, 2021, 01:36:14 PM

Spoiler alert
Is that definitely what it does?
Spoiler alert

[close]
[close]
Well, it says that there's one crime so serious even the cops automatically take it seriously. Which isn't really an argument that holds up well in real life - in fact, you don't have to look hard or far to see that all crimes committed against sex workers aren't exactly high priority for law enforcement.

But it'd be a bit of a downer if the film ended with the realisation that
Spoiler alert
the cops only cared about her death because she wasn't really a stripper who'd gone off to have sex with the groom
[close]

(I get that emotionally the point of the film's conclusion isn't the police involvement, but that the lead was smart enough to outwit the bad guys and get her revenge. But in this kind of story suddenly having the police be the instrument of that revenge is pretty ham-fisted*)

(*not a police joke)

Dr Rock

Quote from: chveik on April 09, 2021, 01:54:48 AM
haven't watched it but that lawyer asking for forgiveness idea is ludicrous.

Maybe watch it and then see what you think?

Hmm I thought it was established that the Dean didn't take the case any further. Then it turn out it went to trial (defense lawyer). I guess the family went to the cops after that?