YMMV / Promising Young Woman

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Al is a very ambiguous character and divisive even on this wiki. Is he an example of Even Evil Has Loved Ones or Even Evil Has Standards in his disgust over killing Cassie? Has he actually cleaned up his act by marrying an "Instagram bikini model"? Or is he the same predator he always was, just proof of his Never My Fault attitude continuing into adulthood? This is arguably the whole point of the movie as confirmed by Word of God. Promising Young Woman is about rape culture. There are many men who may be sincerely nice, beloved, and well-regarded — but they still sexually abuse women or minimize the severity of sexual violence.
  • While Ryan's meant to represent the unsavoriness and unexpectedness of the "Nice Guy" archetype, whether what he says or thinks is genuine could still be given an alternate filter. For example, Values Dissonance could account for him thinking everybody being younger, dumber and drunk at the time when Nina was attacked would either not make it as bad as it seems or allow for anybody to say it's in the past and doesn't matter anymore and it never having been okay at all regardless of poor judgment and time passed is something he legitimately fails to realize when confronted. His also responding badly to Cassie planning to personally confront Al about it could be viewed as his seeing her as dangerous and unstable because it's the deviant approach to the problem and he's only reacting out of fear that Al could get hurt. His also covering for Al when he suspects Cassie was killed could be viewed as him not knowing how to process the idea and it not seeming real to him—as well as still wanting to protect Al and legit thinking Cassie was wrong—and his reactions at the wedding when he discovers Cassie's messages and that she postmortem exposed Al for both Nina's rape and her own murder could be him feeling guilty for not having done or realized how wrong he was until it was ultimately too late. It's not hard to imagine that the respectful and loving version of Ryan that he represented himself as to Cassie early on was indeed the real one and the other stuff was buried deep without resurfacing until much later.
  • Cassie's plan near the end could be interpreted differently. Was her death at the hands of Al an unexpected mishap that she still managed to make a contigency for? Or was her death All Part Of The Plan, being fully prepared to die in order to truly and thoroughly destroy him, alongside possibly reuniting with Nina in the afterlife?
• Award Snub: Despite Carey Mulligan coming into awards season with a widely acclaimed performance, she lost at every major ceremony, most prominently the Academy Awards. This caused some to cry sexism, believing several male voters were turned off by her portrayal of a ruthless feminist figure. Though many see holes in that argument, given the eventual Oscar-winner of that year, Frances McDormand, is also a feminist.
• Awesome Music:
  • "2 Become 1" by The Spice Girls is briefly heard in the beginning.
  • Anthony Willis' creepy, Psycho-esque instrumental arrangement of Britney Spears' "Toxic" definitely qualifies.
  • The film's ending features the best use of Juice Newton's "Angel of the Morning" since Deadpool.
• Broken Base: The ending. People have been divided, more or less, into five camps;
  • Those that think the ending is empowering because, despite being overpowered and killed, Cassie ultimately gets the last laugh, and everyone involved (except Jordan Green) is left to live with the legal and moral consequences.
  • Those that think the ending is justified in its realism, because Cassie is a petite woman, of average fitness, with no apparent self-defense training, and Al's handcuff breaking is just bad luck. They also agree that it's realistic because it reflects how hard it is for women to find justice in the real world. This is how Emerald Fennell feels about it.
  • Those that think the ending is not empowering because, even if Cassie planned for it, she still died in a horribly disempowering way, and she's still not around to see her revenge completed. Most of them also have a problem with the fact that Al is ultimately only facing justice for murder, and not for Nina's rape. There are some that also believe the ending sends a hopeless message to survivors.
    • Though, there are some that would argue this is the point; that rape isn't taken seriously, but murder is. This led others to question why the film needed to be empowering purely because of the subject matter, when other acclaimed films about tough subject matter aren't given the same scrutiny.
  • Those that think the ending is justified because the moment Cassie resorts to violence to get revenge, she immediately pays for it. Reasons vary from seeing Cassie's attempt as Suicidal Overconfidence, seeing Cassie resorting to violence as Jumping Off the Slippery Slope compared to her previous tactics, to seeing it as Cassie ultimately being consumed by her quest for revenge.
  • And finally, those that think the ending is unrealistic, simply because Cassie relies on the police to bring Al to justice, when the film has already explored how institutions often fail survivors, and is seemingly undermining its own message.
    • Then again, the difference is that, this time, the lawyer who originally got Al off is now on Cassie's side, and there is now undeniable evidence for both Nina's rape and Cassie's murder.
• Catharsis Factor: Seeing Al be exposed for not just Nina's rape but more specifically Cassie's murder—and that that means both Ryan and Joey each likely get exposed for their parts too—is immensely satisfying. This is especially because Cassie even though it's beyond the grave still gets both her revenge and exactly what she wanted too.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Cassie's father Stan was seen as a highlight of the film by many due to being the only genuinely likable male in the film, being a loving father to Cassie and Clancy Brown's warm, wonderfully against type performance.
  • Until the very sad and very brutal reveal in the third act, Ryan is absolutely lovable, funny, and charming and Bo Burnham's performance in the role really elevates an already exceptional film.
• He Really Can Act: Bo Burnham as Ryan surprised a lot of people by twisting his usual persona in a compelling way, perfectly capturing how Ryan is both a genuinely nice and charming guy and someone who saw something horrific happen and did nothing and honestly doesn't understand that he did anything wrong even years later and treats it as, at worst, a youthful mistake, showing how even sincerely likable people can fall victim to the traps of rape culture. Many reviewers have said his performance is crucial to the film's theme.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Cassie is at best unpleasant to everyone she meets, and she later indulges in some truly twisted forms of revenge. However, it's clear that Nina's suffering greatly affected Cassie, and she's broken ever since her friend's passing. The fact that this business ruined her promising career and she gets murdered by the very man who raped Nina only adds to her tragedy.
  • Jordan Green worked for years as an Amoral Attorney, represented clients he knew were guilty and pulling whatever dirty tricks he could to get them off, with it explicitly being stated that he bullied Nina until she finally gave up her lawsuit. Then when Cassie confronts him years later, he revealed that all of his misdeeds drove him to a mental breakdown, and ever since then has been so riddled with guilt that he quite literally gets on his knees begging for Cassie's forgiveness.
• Magnificent Bitch: Cassandra "Cassie" Thomas was a star medical school student who dropped out after the rape and later suicide of her best friend Nina Fisher by the popular Al Monroe. While brilliantly plotting her own revenge, Cassie also moonlights pretending to be in a drunken stupor to terrify would-be rapists to spare other women Nina's fate. Utterly ruthless in her methods, Cassie meticulously uncovers the details she needs to bring Nina's case to light, swaying Al's corrupt but repentant lawyer and even frightening the school's dean and a former student by making the former think her daughter had been kidnapped and the latter that she had been sexually assaulted. After coercing a cowardly bystander of the rape into giving up the location of Al's bachelor party, Cassie dies confronting Al but leaves clues for the police to out the whole crowd, ending the film by getting all of them arrested or having their lives destroyed.
• The Woobie:
  • We never see her, but the tragedy of Nina's story comes through crystal clear anyway. She was college student at the top of her class on the way to becoming a doctor, and all of that changes when she's raped. Despite there being plenty of witnesses, none of them intervene or stand up for her later on, with even her friend Madison Slut-Shaming her over the incident. Nina's attempts to get justice against her rapist fail when an Amoral Attorney bullies her into dropping the case. A broken Nina even drops out due to all of her suffering, and is eventually Driven to Suicide.
  • Cassie's parents are rather pitiable. Years ago, their daughter dropped out of college to help Nina through the pain of her rape. Despite Cassie having great promise in the field, she never resumes her education and lives as a Basement-Dweller for years, with her mom and dad forced to see their daughter wasting her life, the former at one point being unable to contain her feelings and blowing up at Cassie over this. Later, when Cassie's finally on the way to moving on, her father notes how much they've missed her all this time, and notes that they loved Nina like a daughter, showing that they grieved over her tragedy as well. Making matters even worse, not long after Cassie's seemingly getting better, she winds up being killed, just adding more misery to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas' lives.