Deservedly up for a Best Picture nod in 2021, director-writer Emerald Fennell has fashioned a production that brings new meaning to “revenge fuck”.
Set roughly a decade after a no-holds barred frat party (where, conveniently, almost everyone was too drunk to remember—including the dean, the model of sober, selfish thought), it falls to former medical student, Cassandra—so aptly named…—to take it upon herself to mete out justice to all men who offer, allegedly, comfort and a safe ride home to wayward girls that have quaffed far more booze and/or drugs than permit them to see/think straight.
Carey Mulligan’s portrayal of Cassie is most certainly of Best Actress quality. Well-known in these pages (cross-reference below), she hits one out of the park and into the pathetic crotches of so many men—then and now—who believe they know an easy lay when they find one.
Permanently grieving over her long-lost and dead soulmate, Nina (both women quitting medical school after one atrocious night…), Cassie opts to take a minimum wage job at a coffee shop by day, and then lure men into her web and humiliate them in as many ways as possible at night. A noble calling, but nothing will bring Nina back.
Still living with her parents (Clancy Brown is a sympathetic Dad, Jennifer Coolidge somewhat short on empathy as Mom), this rebel with a cause seems more intent on evening the score than moving on with her life.
Re-enter Ryan (Bo Burnham plays the sudden love interest with initial grace and charm, before facing his own long-forgotten duplicity without much emotion).
Cassie seems to delight in confronting voices from her past (the lawyer-of-the-day begging forgiveness, former girlfriend getting drunk-again for the road—before delivering a knockout digital punch that ought to settle more than one “score” and soon-to-be-married co-ed, Al—Cris Lowell—scoring more in bed at his bachelor party than anyone might imagine.
The opening sequence masterfully paints a picture of the film not to come (some viewers might be too-soon repulsed by the drunken depravity), but Fennell artfully builds interest and tension as virtually everyone on screen have their masks stripped away. Perhaps the weakest plot point being the handcuffs, where Cassie seems uncharacteristically unprepared.
The varied music tracks add much to the ongoing drama, save and except for Wagner’s Liebestod which is very untogether in this version from the Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by Bernard Haitink.
All that said, it’s a film well worth a look, if only to further understand the abuse of women in our concurrent age of Black Lives Matter. Surely we are all done with both stains on humanity. JWR