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Cary Mulligan dazzles in this deliciously dark and twisted revenge thriller
Emerald Fennell’s directorial debut is an irresistibly provocative film delivering a power punch commentary on predatory behaviour and sexual assault. Cassie’s (Cary Mulligan) life could have been so different. A bright high school student with a career in medicine beckoned. But one night changed that forever when she experienced the rape of her best friend Nina by jock classmate Al, and her subsequent suicide. Now she is 30 years old and living with her parents, without a boyfriend and devoid of any professional ambitions. However this life of boredom conceals a secret vocation we are introduced to in a tense opening. By night she glams up, goes to nightclubs and is found passing-outdrunk by men pretending to help her. Predictably on each occasion a taxi home is interrupted by a stop off at their place where they proceed to get frisky and take advantage of her. It’s uneasy viewing, made more uneasy when she suddenly turns out to be stone cold sober, leaving them thinking twice about repeating any such predatory action again. When an old classmate and all round nice guy Ryan (Bo Burnham) asks her out on a date her faith in men appears to be restored until she learns of Al’s arrival in town for his impending stag do. The urge for revenge is too strong to ignore setting up a delicious finale with surprises at every turn.
This is not your run of the mill rape-revenge thriller where a psychotic anti-hero picks off her victims with a simmering rage. Fennell instead gives us a more nuanced and thoughtful experience that really gets under the skin of ‘he said, she said’ rape culture. Rather than physically punishing her victims she instead mentally scars them by holding a mirror to their past misdemeanors.
Whilst there are brief elements of rom-com this is an exploitation thriller fizzing with a bleached colour canvas best exemplified by Cassie’s caked on make-up and rainbow coloured hair. A fine ensemble cast cannot take away from what is a whirlwind performance by Mulligan fully deserving of the Oscar buzz she’s received. A must see movie.
