Die Hard

...is not a Christmas movie. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can commence discussing this legendary 1988 action flick. Set in a five-hundred-foot skyscraper called the Nakatomi Plaza, terrorists take over...wait, wait. I can't simply leave it at that, can I? It's true that lots of folks genuinely (and passionately) argue about whether or not Die Hard, the action-packed thriller directed by John McTiernan based on the novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp that reframed Bruce Willis into an iconic action star, is a Christmas movie. 

What arguments are made for the film being considered a Christmas one? I'm still not totally sure. There are a few Christmas songs in there, and the characters mention the word Christmas about six or so times in the first twenty minutes (before the heist starts). But it seems to me that with that shaky reasoning, you might as well consider Goodfellas a Christmas movie. "Holly!" they shout. "His wife's name is Holly! Like the Christmas trees!" Not sure that would hold up in court.

If Christmas stories revolve around themes of love, family, generosity, and the spirit of giving, it's a bit of a stretch to say that the content of Die Hard relates to any of those. Christmas movies are to me about the redemptive and rebirth quality of the holiday season; at the very least, the protagonist learns some sort of lesson, one in which they are made better because of it. This is true of A Christmas Carol and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story; it is also true of the newest Christmas classic: this year's wonderful film, The Holdovers. None of that exists in Die Hard. It is true that the first twenty minutes or so of the movie (again, before the actual heist starts) flirt with these notions. There is the estranged marriage of John McClane, a New York cop played by Willis, and his wife (Bonnie Bedelia); a quarrel between the two at a Christmas party held by her employer, Joseph Yoshinobu Takagi (James Shigeta), the head of Nakatomi, takes place just before the action starts.

Once the film really becomes the Die Hard we know and love—the jump from the building, the cat-and-mouse games, "yippie-ki-yay, mother fucker" and all that—it more or less stops tip-toeing its way to holiday themes. McClane kills one of the thieves and taunts the others with a cryptic message ("Now I have a machine gun—ho ho ho"), he uses Christmas tape to hide a gun on his body, and the film concludes with "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!" I'm still not totally sold on these scenes qualifying the movie as a holiday film.

Thanks to the debate over this, some concerns about Die Hard tend to be glossed over or forgotten, like the film being peak-cop worship and its almost excessive violence, not to mention its arbitrary, gazy (yet brief) nudity. Lots of the film is praiseworthy, though, particularly the exceptional talent of McTiernan and his team for creating such a tense, fun action flick. And Willis is especially worthy of praise as McClane, the bare-footed, cigarette-chomping, muscular rogue cop molded like a cowboy who is also vulnerable and often on death's door but usually one step ahead of the bad guys. Willis's charm and energy on the screen is incredible, and it's impossible to envision any other actor in the role. 

Could someone other than Willis have found their way into the film? It nearly came to be that way. It may come as a surprise to many (including me), but Die Hard is technically a sequel (in the way that The Silence of the Lambs is technically a sequel to Manhunter). Thorp had written a novel called The Detective in 1966, which was released as a motion picture two years later by 20th Century Fox with Frank Sinatra in the lead role as Joe Leland (the protagonist's name in both The Detective and Nothing Lasts Forever). The studio was contractually obligated to offer the role in its adaptation of Nothing Lasts Forever to Sinatra, who felt he was too old at the time. The role (eventually changed to John McClane) was then offered to just about every major Hollywood star at the time one would think of for a project like this: Clint Eastwood, Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Pacino, and others. A major chance was then taken with the hiring of Bruce Willis, who at that point was known more as a comedic actor in television, and he had only been in six previous films. 

The filmmakers found quite an equal for Willis to play the villain Hans Gruber: Alan Rickman, who made his film debut here after about a decade of theatrical work. I would guess that Rickman's German accent isn't the most accurate in the world, but what he delivers as Gruber has become renowned for being an exceptional movie villain.  Hans Gruber is on virtually every list of the best movie villains of all time, including Collider's, Business Insider's, Empire's, the AFI's, Watch Mojo's, and USA Today's. "I'm going to count to three," he warns Mr. Takagi after he and his group of thieves have stormed the plaza and demanded the code for the vault. "There will not be a four." These are some of cinema's most chilling threats. As John and Hans participate in this cat-and-mouse game in the skyscraper, they take turns with who has the advantage over the other. John rings the fire alarm, and the criminals override it. He calls the police, and the criminals impersonate security guards and convince the officer that everything is fine. The variety of thrills felt during these scenes (the loud ones and the quiet ones) are terrifically augmented by Michael Kamen's almost operatic score. 

Willis and Rickman lead a mostly competent cast, with a whole host of characters showing up along the way: There's Reginald VelJohnson in a very VelJohnson role as Sergeant Al Powell (a role he would reprise in Die Hard 2), a beat cop assigned to investigate the disturbance at the plaza, only to get roped into the mess and be basically the only man McClane can trust; Paul Gleason in a very Gleason role as the argumentative LAPD deputy chief who tussles with Powell and often makes the mess messier; and Robert Davi in a very, very Davi role as one of the FBI agents ("the other one," he deadpans into the radio because both FBI agents are named Johnson). Other effective performances include William Atherton as a reprobate TV reporter and Alexander Godunov as Gruber's menacing second-in-command. Two performances that are noticeably over-the-top, however, are Clarence Gilyard as the tech specialist in Gruber's crew (who chews up the scenery) and Hart Bochner as a sleazy Nakatomi exec who thinks he can schmooze his way out of trouble with the bad guys. Both performances are distracting.

Released in July (which I guess is Christmas season to some people), the film performed better than expected, ultimately becoming the seventh-highest grossing film of 1988. Who could blame audiences for being attracted to such a motion picture? In a year dominated by comedies (Coming to America, Big, Twins), Die Hard was able to fill the vacuum of lackluster action flicks like Rambo III with Sylvester Stallone and Red Heat with Arnold Schwarzenegger (Willis's co-stars in The Expendables) with a funnier brand of action. The blend of action, comedy, and drama in the initial script and rewrite by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza, respectively, mesh such genres in a way that few films have been able to do since, despite all the copycats. Notable instances of such combination include McClane and Gruber (disguising himself as a hostage named Bill Clay) finally coming face to face and McClane jumping from the building with only a firehose strapped around him while slowly being dragged towards the ledge.   

You know, the more I think of it while writing this article, the more I can tolerate Die Hard being considered a holiday film. The Nutcracker is an important tradition for many during the holiday season, and it too takes place during a Christmas party and features far fewer Christmas tropes than Die Hard does. If watching Die Hard during the Christmas season brings people happiness, then who am I to say they're wrong? One rationalization for considering it Christmas canon that does make sense to me (and one that is hardly ever mentioned) is the film's frequent use of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, particularly when the final (4th) movement ("Ode to Joy") is beautifully played as Hans (Alan Rickman) and the other thieves finally break into the vault. Fans may or may not know that in Japan, for example, this music is considered an important Christmas tradition. This is perfectly fitting, given the film's setting at the Nakatomi Plaza. Christmas movie or not, Die Hard has stood the test of time all these years later and has spawned four sequels (with some being better than others). At this point, I'm a little exhausted of the odd debate over its status as a Christmas movie. Call it a Christmas film if you want, or don't. I just hope you enjoy it as much as I do.  

Read More →

Prey

"The animals who play with the most abandon are the predators."

"But surely prey are almost never safe enough to play."

-Brenda Cooper, Edge of Dark 

All Native peoples have legends and stories about the sky, according to Lee Grayson, and in some groups, "children moving into adulthood go into nature to look at the sky for life-changing visions." But what if what a youth saw in the sky wasn't simply a vision serving as an impetus for her hero's journey but also a sign that something unearthly and dangerous was about to come for her? Such a danger has been featured several times before: with Navy SEAL Arnold Schwarzenegger and crew in Central America, with L.A. detective Danny Glover, and two (or four, if you count the Alien vs. Predator movies) more films, all featuring that omnipresent clicking noise of the Predator. 

Prey, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, is the latest Predator movie. The last one was the Shane Black-directed film The Predator, but with reshoots, mixed reviews, and a MeToo controversy, it might have been the last time we would see the towering menace and its thirst for human trophies. However, the creature returns in a prequel surprisingly set in the Northern Great Plains in 1719, and for many, surprisingly or not, Prey has been the best. This time, one of the Predators is up against not Arnold and his SEALs or Detective Glover (or Adrien Brody or Boyd Holbrook and on and on) but a Comanche tribe, specifically a young woman named Naru, played by Amber Midthunder. 

Predictably, everyone around Naru wants her to be domestic, yet she yearns for traditionally masculine roles, such as being a hunter like her brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers), a leader in her tribe. Her brother can be supportive, but not fully; ultimately, he decides she is not ready to go out and hunt whatever it is that she claims to see in the sky. Yet she and her dog Sarii (played by Coco) secretly follow her brother and the other men to rescue one of their members who was attacked by a mountain lion. Along the way, however, Naru sees troubling signs of a creature far worse. There are warning signs all around her: a dead snake, gigantic footprints, and that disturbance in the sky she mistakes for a sign that she is ready to begin her trial. 

Naru and her tribe are in danger due to both kinds of aliens: one from outside their world and one from across the ocean. The latter are French fur traders, and the usual beats are there: They slaughter the buffalo the Comanche rely on, Sarii's tail gets trapped in one of their foothold traps, and they capture one of the Comanche men and torture him. The film uses the horrid behavior of the fur trappers to potently remind audiences what happened on this continent. The film makes clear that the real predators were Europeans. 

I'd like to quote Jon T. Coleman's book Vicious: Wolves and Men in America to help understand Naru as a character in relation to the Predator. According to Coleman, "Vulnerability—not hunger, not anger, and certainly not spite—is the key to predator-prey relationships. The skill and viciousness of the hunter matters less than the size, speed, strength, health, and ferocity of the hunted...Predators eat the mild and weak because those are the animals they can catch and kill." This is not to suggest that Naru is always invulnerable throughout the story. At different times, she is in profound danger. She even makes mistakes. But she also possesses the driving force of her own ambition to prove herself that helps keep her alive. The scorn she receives from male members of her tribe and the skepticism and frustration from her mother (Michelle Thrush) only augment her drive. True, she might use vengeance against other humans occupying her space, but against her nonhuman hunter, she will also weaponize her size, speed, and strength. Along the way, it certainly helps that she knows medicine and can help the injured. In essence, she is one of the most badass characters we've seen on the screen in a while. 

There are exciting moments throughout the film involving a variety of other predator-and-prey creatures (snakes, mountain lions, wolves, rabbits, deer, and even a bear), all set against the backdrop of gorgeous locations in Calgary. Our protagonist will find herself in at least some of these trials and tribulations, and she faces them with wide-eyed grit. While watching, though, you might forget that you're not simply viewing a period piece involving a Comanche young woman, but you're also watching the latest installment in a thirty-five-year franchise. The Predator, as most of us have seen, is a tall, incredibly robust creature with technology far more advanced than everything humans have been able to throw at it. In Predator back in 1987, he was played by the seven-foot-tall Kevin Peter Hall, and with hours of Stan Winston-created makeup effects featuring terrifying mandibles, Hall as the Predator made for a formidable foe against Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, and others. Here, an ancestor of that first monster is played by actor and former basketball player Dane DiLiegro. The technology DiLiegro's Predator uses may be more primitive than that used in films that take place centuries later, but it is still more potent and deadly than anything his opponents have. 

Despite how exciting and thrilling this sci-fi/action/horror/thriller can be, it's a little surprising and even fascinating that 20th Century Studios, Disney, and the others involved with the production would agree to try something like this: to take a franchise that got off to a great start way back in the Eighties (and then featured mediocre-at-best attempts to recreate the magic) but now make something totally familiar yet fresh. I imagine director Dan Trachtenberg, screenwriter Patrick Aison, and others might have faced a skeptical audience as they tried to persuade the powers that be that this would be a worthwhile project and worth the risk. Fortunately for them, the risk paid off: Prey is currently ranked among the ten best films of 2022 on Rotten Tomatoes, and it became Hulu's biggest premiere ever.  

It's not too surprising that the franchise took a big swing by making the film a prequel and setting it three hundred years ago. It's not surprising because Trachtenberg has a track record of taking such risks, like when he verged away from the found-footage monster horror of Cloverfield to make its sequel (10 Cloverfield Lane) a human-based thriller set entirely in a bunker. What is more surprising is that this well-known commodity features a mostly indigenous cast. Prey comes at a time of greater indigenous representation in the U.S., with Deb Haaland's appointment as the first Native American cabinet secretary in history and the FX teen comedy-drama series Reservation Dogs gaining rave reviews being notable examples. Yet these examples exist in the backdrop of disappointing but unsurprising statistics: According to Reclaim Native Truth, Native American characters make up no more than 0.4 percent of characters in film and television.

Prey, whose production team took steps to make sure what was on screen was historically accurate (including the tooth-brushing scene and horses, for example), even features a dubbed version in Comanche. I first watched Prey when it was released last summer. When I rewatched it, I did so with the version that was dubbed into Comanche, and I was happy that the dubbing was not as distracting as I thought it would be. It's least distracting in Midthunder's scenes. Speaking of Midthunder, she's the best part. Her acting is top-notch, and whether it involves her going toe-to-toe with the Predator, standing up to the men in her tribe, or constantly running, she's great. It seems unlikely (though possible) that we will see her Naru again; if anything, the owners of this franchise will likely do what has always been done: try something new. But there are hints that a sequel could be hidden throughout the film (including a neat Easter egg). I don't think there should be a direct sequel involving these characters, but if there is, I look forward to seeing Naru and her trusty dog companion once again.   

Read More →

Charade

 "All I want for Christmas is to make another movie with Audrey Hepburn." So said Cary Grant, Hollywood's amiable king of charisma. Alas, he never got his wish, but one can certainly imagine that a second pairing would have been just as rewarding as the first. The two stars were paired as the leads in Charade, the 1963 film directed by Stanley Donen, that remains possibly the finest film in the public domain. (It ended up there due to a copyright notice error.) Often described as "the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never directed," Charade is one of the most alluring films in cinematic history. Much of it is due to the wonderful pairing of these two. It would be unfair to say they carry the film. Many others involved deserve acclaim for how Charade turned out. But their pairing remains one of Hollywood's most brilliant castings.

Hepburn plays Reggie Lambert, an interpreter working in Paris taking a skiing trip in the Alps. Her vacation doesn't seem to be bringing her much comfort, though, as her upcoming divorce to her husband, Charles, weighs on her mind, providing her a presumably equal sense of liberation and anxiety. While on vacation, she meets a man identifying himself as Peter Joshua, played by the incomparable Grant. He may be quite older than she (something that made Grant uncomfortable during the filming), but she appears quite smitten with him. (Needless to say, as much as romance works, the way Peter sometimes lectures Reggie comes across as very condescending.) Perhaps the two will meet again after Reggie's divorce goes through, but soon the problems commence.

Things aren't quite what they seem regarding Charles. To start, he's thrown off a train (in his pajamas, a reoccurring theme that is pointed out to us). The police detective (Jacques Marin) points out to her that Charles went by a variety of aliases and possessed a variety of passports from a variety of countries, which comes as a shock to Reggie.

At Charles' wake, attendance is low. Aside from Reggie, her friend Sylvie (Dominique Minot), and the detective, a trio of antagonists storm in one by one. Gideon (Ned Glass) takes a good look at Charlie, then promptly sneezes. Tex (James Coburn) enters next; he seems to be an equally suspicious figure, and Reggie doesn't recognize either of them. The third "mourner" is Herman (George Kennedy), a towering figure with a claw hand who bulldozes his way into the church, takes a quick look at Charlie, then violently thrusts a needle into his flesh to determine if he truly is dead. (He is.) Herman leaves immediately. Reggie has no idea what's going on. "Don't ask me," she tells Sylvie. "I'm only the widow."

At the wake, she receives a note from a CIA official named Hamilton Bartholomew, played by Walter Matthau, summoning her to the U.S. Embassy in Paris. There, looking like Dan Aykroyd imitating Walt Disney, he chews on his sandwich rather ostentatiously as he tells her that her husband was involved with the three men at the wake in an OSS operation to deliver $250,000 to the French Resistance during the war; the money never reached the Resistance. Charles was likely killed by someone after the money, and that same person may be after Reggie, believing that she now possesses it. But who is the culprit? Herman? Tex? Gideon? All three? Someone else? In this cat-and mouse thriller/comedy/romance/mystery, Reggie may have three or more murderers after her and this money she supposedly has. Making matters worse for her is the fact that there is increasing evidence that Peter may not be who he says he is. The film is a fantasy, but perhaps the most fantastical element is Reggie constantly believing Peter after every edit to his story.

From her first moments, Hepburn demonstrates her mastery at delivering dialogue, particularly the one-liners aplenty provided by writers Peter Stone and Marc Behm, such as when she asks why Jean-Louis (Sylvie's son) can't do "something constructive like start an avalanche or something." This is a remarkably witty film, and if you like escapism from the way real people talk in the real world, Charade might be just the fit for you.

It's not just the rich screenplay that helps Charade succeed so well. Charles Lang's camera is an active one, whether it's from the perspective of the dead Charles in the morgue or frantically following Reggie as she finds her apartment shockingly empty. The fight on the roof between Grant and Kennedy is effectively shot, and is assisted by Henry Mancini's score, which also adds to the delight of Charade. Incidentally, Mancini's famous score remains the only aspect of Charade that is not in the public domain.

The acting in Charade is, for the most part, top-notch. Hepburn and Grant hit all the right notes, as does Matthau, a performance dripping with bureaucratic aridity. Despite Glass' sneezing in a gratuitous manner that comes across as very unfunny, Kennedy going full boogeyman, and Coburn really reaching for all those Southernisms, they all do a fine job as a trio of menacing villains. Even the boy playing Jean-Louis (Thomas Chelimsky) is fine, or as fine as a French-speaking child actor in a 1960s English-language film could be. Hepburn, it must be said, gives the best performance. But it is Grant who has the funniest bits. In a scene that bathes itself in 60s quirkiness and perhaps even sexual liberation, the two participate in a game at a club involving passing fruit to other people without using their hands. Grant relishes every moment, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes everyone else (characters and audience). These days, just about any character showering in his clothes to flirt with someone would be seen as peculiar at best and desperate and misguided at worst. With Grant, it's effortlessly charming.

I really adored this film the first time I saw it in high school. I've seen it at least two other times since. I cannot say it never gets old. It does, but only because the constant twists and turns are no longer novel. But other elements never diminish. The charm of the two leads is a constant joy. It's a pity they didn't have a cinematic reunion, one as fun as Charade.

This review was originally published on July 19, 2020 at the Public Domain Film Review.

 

Read More →

The 39 Steps

The films Alfred Hitchcock directed can probably be split up into five (more or less) distinct stages: The first is his films that only the most die-hard Hitchcock enthusiasts and film historians are aware of. The period is from 1923 (with the first film he directed, the silent short Always Tell Your Wife) until 1934; it includes all of the silent films he directed and Blackmail, the first talkie film he directed. 

Later stages of Hitchcock's illustrious career include a third stage (his longest, the time when he reigned as a king in Hollywood, starting with the Best Picture-winning gothic drama Rebecca in 1940 until some of his best films, such as Vertigo, North by Northwest, and Psycho) and the final stage: the last thirteen years of his career that include some memorable films (like Marnie) and some that few have seen (like the critically reviled Torn Curtain).  

The 39 Steps from 1935 exists in a second stage of Hitchcock's filmography. It's during this period that amateur film historians (including me) start to recognize some of the titles he's been associated with: The Man Who Knew Too Much from 1934 (which he remade in 1956), Sabotage from 1936, and The Lady Vanishes from 1937. While I'm not an authority on Hitchcock by any stretch of the imagination, it seems that during this period, he really started to establish himself as a master of the cinema, and many elements he would be forever known for (trains, blonds, a wronged man, and that sort of thing) start to become common fixtures in his thrillers. 

In the film, Richard Hannay (played by Robert Donat, whose sophisticated demeanor and elocution make him seem like the lovechild of David Tomlinson and Colin Firth) is an Englishman who's returned from Canada. Hannay goes to a music hall for some fun, and the main attraction of the night is a man dubbed Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson), whose cool trick is that he can call out the answer to any question any audience member has, regardless of how trivial it is. The audience is enjoying it all until shots are fired, causing obvious panic.

Hannay discovers that the person who fired the shots is a woman named Annabelle Smith (Lucie Mannheim, the Jewish actor who fled Germany and started participating in anti-Hitler propaganda broadcasts). Flirting with Smith, the two go back to his place where they start to have a late-night snack, and at this point she explains to him that she was the one who fired the shots in order to help her escape from spies who were pursuing her belonging to an organization called the 39 Steps. This may sound preposterous to a guy like Hannay, but he will soon discover how such a story isn't always easy for the listener to accept, and he soon finds himself (like many characters in Hitchcock movies) in way over his head. Why? Soon the agents who are after Smith start to go after Hannay. He escapes on a train to Scotland, heading there because there is a small town circled on Smith's map. However, Hannay finds himself framed for murder, so he must avoid both the law and these foreign agents chasing after him. 

Why is the sinister organization named the 39 Steps? We're never told, but it doesn't matter. The twist—in which Hannay and the audience learn exactly what they are and exactly what they want (and exactly how they plan on getting it)—these days must seem a bit hard to buy, but it's clever nevertheless. The film's pacing sometimes feels dated, but for the most part it breezily moves about its eighty-six minutes in ways that are totally agreeable, even to modern-day audiences. The actors all look like they must have been having a good time as well, particularly Donat, Madeleine Carroll (who plays a woman caught up in Hannay's mess), and Godfrey Tearle, who despite only appearing in a few scenes as the film's main antagonist, seems to have relished every moment of it.  

The film is a thriller, but it's a humorous one, as well. The banter between Donat and Carroll's characters, despite being a bit creepy at times, is mostly spot-on and charming. Donat's ability to convincingly portray Hannay as a man who can so confidently and quickly speak out of his rear end effortlessly despite all these problems he steps in shows just how much of a natural he was. A few years after The 39 Steps was released, Donat won Best Actor for Goodbye, Mr. Chips, beating Mickey Rooney for Babes in Arms, James Stewart for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Clark Gable for Gone With the Wind, and Laurence Olivier for Wuthering Heights.  

Critics praised The 39 Steps when it was released. Proving a box office hit and a critical success, The 39 Steps certainly has maintained enthusiasts over the years, like Orson Welles, who called the film a masterpiece, and Robert Townsend, who once said that "contemporary escapist entertainment begins with The 39 Steps." That's not hyperbole. The cleverness has remained, as have the effectiveness of smaller things (like the way tension can be sustained with each ring of the phone), even if nearly a hundred years have passed. 

Those who love Hitchcock-directed films surely should seek this one out if they haven't already. You'll get a Hitchcock cameo (towards the beginning) and other neat tricks that seem quite ahead of its time, like a woman's scream being replaced by a train whistle as it races by. Whether it's on a train or in a kitchen, Hitchcock knew how to do suspense, even back in the mid-30s when he directed The 39 Steps, his twenty-first film. True, at times it seems quite similar to later films (especially North by Northwest), but that shouldn't count too much against it. In essence, The 39 Steps is just as suspenseful and unpredictable as many of the later films he directed. 

Read More →

Promising Young Woman

"That is just asking for it." This is one of the lines from the creepy predators featured throughout this film; this particular one comes right at the beginning. The predators are a few guys hanging out at a club, venting about work and on the lookout for a hookup. Soon, they see a woman who has had too much to drink. They start to express concern; they want to make sure the really drunk woman at the club is alright, but this is all part of the strategy. It's a slightly more woke, slightly more polite version of the type of sexual predator we've come to know in pop culture, both in front of the camera and behind it. These guys will make sure the woman is okay, but also okay enough to go to bed with him. "Gosh, you're so pretty," they'll say, to really drive home their courteous, falsely deferential persona. It's like they're a feminist version of a rapist, and the ultimate villain in this tale is the attitude that boys will be boys. 

2017 was the year of MeToo, but 2020 was the year of MeToo cinema. Three years after the beginning of the movement, which would bring about the downfall of Harvey Weinstein, John Lasseter, R. Kelly, Dustin Hoffman, and so many others, notable films like The Assistant, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, and The Invisible Man have tackled the subject. None of those films have been quite as forceful as Promising Young Woman, the new film written and directed by Emerald Fennell, her full-length feature film debut. (She has acted in films like The Danish Girl and the Netflix show The Crown and has a cameo in this film.) One of the reasons why Promising Young Woman is important is because the inexcusable behavior of men is not always so obvious (at least to other men, that is). For example, after Weinstein's accusers finally got the attention of the world, many men surely felt relief that they themselves had never behaved like Weinstein. It wasn't until the behavior of other celebrities (like Aziz Ansari and James Franco) became known that the male population as a whole probably sat themselves down to have a self-reflection session. 

Cassie Thomas is surrounded by guys like these. She also has had to deal a lot with toxic femininity in her life, as some women in her past and present have engaged in subtle slut shaming and victim blaming. Cassie is played by Carey Mulligan in probably her best performance so far. Despite the film's title, Cassie dropped out of medical school and serves coffee at a local shop while living with her parents. But by night, she goes out to clubs, where her mission has a profound sense of purpose to end predatory behavior, as she goes from club to bar and puts on an act of being completely intoxicated, luring in seedy men before she can rain verbal justice on them.

Why is she doing this? It's best to leave that unwritten. Fennell doesn't reveal Cassie's reasons for a while, and even then only gradually. But part of Cassie's odyssey is hindered when she starts to fall for an old college classmate from medical school named Ryan (Bo Burnham), a seemingly sweet guy who is now a doctor. Cassie can't help but fall for him, and the two of them lip syncing in a pharmacy to Paris Hilton is the most joyous moment in a film that for the rest of its runtime is quite dark. Burnham, the comic who rose to fame in the early days of YouTube and who also wrote and directed Eighth Grade, provides the most complex acting of his career. Mulligan and Burnham are also supported by a great cast that includes Alison Brie, Clancy Brown, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Connie Britton, Sam Richardson, Max Greenfield, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Molly Shannon, and Alfred Molina. 

The color palate used in this film, with Rae Deslich's set decoration, Nancy Steiner's costume design, and Benjamin Kracun's cinematography, is exceptional and makes the film feel like a less disgusting version of Birds of Prey. And aside from the technical aspects and Mulligan's acting, Fennell's writing and directing is the best part about Promising Young Woman. Her script features a lot of admirable strategic patience, only giving a few pieces of information at its own pace. 

It's not perfect, though. For example, there are two major twists in the film. One takes place at the conclusion of the prologue, and the other basically starts the final act of the film. The first one is unexpected, and will start the journey of making things a little clearer. The second twist, while important, is also kind of predictable. Additionally, this is a black comedy, but some of the humor is unfunny at best and overly morbid at worst. There are other problematic moments as well. It seems like Cassie is able to get away with some of her actions (like smashing up a car with a tire iron) probably because she's a white woman.

That being said, Promising Young Woman certainly is a clever, more modern and sophisticated revenge flick than what we're used to seeing from Hollywood, and we should all greatly look forward to Fennell's next work. 

Read More →