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![Promising Young Woman]()
Fennell has stated that the ending is meant to be tragic but hopeful. "It’s a tragedy," she said. "But it is also a fantasy... If Cassie had killed him, he would have been the victim. But by making him a murderer, she exposed him for what he is." No analysis of Promising Young Woman is complete without discussing its needle drops. The soundtrack is a genius exercise in irony. The film opens with Charli XCX's "Boys"—a bubblegum pop song celebrating the 'fun' of men—played over a montage of men being predatory in a club.
Cassie dies. The predator wins.
Cassie dropped out too, but not because she was broken. She dropped out to become a vengeance angel. Promising Young Woman
The heartbreak of the film is that Cassie truly loves Ryan. She lets her guard down. She laughs with him. For a brief, glorious moment, she allows herself to believe she can have a normal life. But when she realizes he was a bystander, the fantasy collapses. She cannot love a man who watched her best friend get destroyed. Spoiler Warning: The final fifteen minutes of Promising Young Woman are essential to discuss. Fennell has stated that the ending is meant
When writer-director Emerald Fennell first introduced the world to Promising Young Woman at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020, few predicted the cultural earthquake it would trigger. Released theatrically on Christmas Day 2020 (and later winning the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay), the film was marketed as a revenge thriller. But to label Promising Young Woman simply as "revenge" is like calling The Godfather a movie about weddings. If Cassie had killed him, he would have been the victim
The system failed. And Nina broke. She dropped out of school, and eventually, she killed herself.