"Promising Young Woman"

"Promising Young Woman" is polarizing--which is a good sign.

This is the story of Cassie, who works in a coffee shop. She once made her way through parts of med school, but a brilliant classmate, Nina, was assaulted, and Cassie dropped out to take care of Nina. Others now look at Cassie--others, including Nina's mother--and ask, "Why can't you move on?"

The assailant--who seems pretty clearly modeled on Brett Kavanaugh--emerges unscathed. He begins a medical practice and becomes engaged to a "really solid find."

A stranger comes to town. This stranger has new information about the assailant. Cassie suddenly finds herself pursuing vengeance; abductions are staged, hitmen are hired. And we're only part-way through Act Two.

This movie has a wonderful one-two punch at the end; the first twist involves Bo Burnham, and the second takes place in a kind of woodsy luxe lodge. The story has true shape-shifters, and our heroine is actually an antiheroine. (She is also weirdly charming. When someone offends her in the coffee shop and jokingly says, "Sorry, you can spit in my coffee..." the star does, actually, spit in that person's coffee. Carey Mulligan does this with her strange, quiet charisma--and we're mesmerized.)

Like "Get Out," "PYW" uses a thriller formula to make some points about actual behaviors in the world; in this case, the behaviors have to do with gender, not race. Like "Get Out," "PYW" drew major names early on: Connie Britton, Alison Brie, Molly Shannon, Laverne Cox, Alfred Molina.

This is a movie that swings for the fences, and after having struggled to stay awake for the noble, tedious "One Night in Miami," I can say, emphatically, that "PYW" is the movie to rent. May Ms. Mulligan triumph at the Golden Globes.

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