Promising Young Woman

Emerald Fennell sets a clear rule in the first half hour: Cassie plays drunk in bars and meets whoever takes her home stone cold sober. Fennell says the film grew from that one image in her head. Then it drops the setup for a stretch of romantic comedy, where the walkouts happen. Fennell cast comedians as the men, Bo Burnham and Adam Brody among them, so they arrive as opportunists rather than creeps, each sure he is the good guy. The assault is never shown. Anthony Willis rewrote Britney Spears’s Toxic for strings as the prelude to the final act, the orchestra’s tuning left at its head. The shoot took twenty three days. Fennell’s first draft let Cassie take her revenge and get out; she changed it: once a weapon was in the room, she says, it could not end otherwise. The closing scene runs in real time, the camera pushing in so nobody can look away. It was nominated for best picture, directing, actress and film editing, and won the Oscar for original screenplay. A good fit if you accept the bar setup being abandoned and the heroine dying before the end, her leftover plan finishing it. Not for viewers for whom sexual assault is close to home; the film never shows it but rests all its weight there.