*****SOME MINOR SPOILERS***** There’s a scene about halfway through Promising Young Woman, the new film starring Carey Mulligan, that when it arrives it does so with such unexpected and apparent sincerity that one is, temporarily, thrown off balance. In it, Cassie (Mulligan), a medical school dropout-cum-coffee-shop-barista, is on a date with Ryan (played rather too perspicaciously by Bo Burnham), the guy who has been courting her affections with varying degrees of success for most of the movie and who, having made some headway, was distressed to catch Cassie in a handful of lies and at least one compromising situation outside of a night club a few scenes prior. Never mind, though: the scene in question immediately succeeds one in which the would-be lovers make amends. Now they’re in a pharmacy (reasons unclear) while Paris Hilton’s rapturous 2005 hit “Stars Are Blind” plays over the pharmacy sound system. Cassie notices Ryan singing along to the first verse and teases him for knowing the lyrics, which only encourages him. Soon, he’s singing and dancing around the store, using the various wares as props and making a genuine though endearing spectacle of himself. Cassie eventually joins him, in the process revealing her own deep knowledge of the zeitgeist of the early aughts. The scene becomes a montage, with shots cutting between Cassie and Ryan at the pharmacy to Cassie and Ryan in bed watching TV, or Cassie and Ryan in bed having breakfast, or Cassie and Ryan having pizza with Cassie’s manager, or Cassie and Ryan kissing at the coffee shop. You get the idea.
on "promising young woman"
on "promising young woman"
on "promising young woman"
*****SOME MINOR SPOILERS***** There’s a scene about halfway through Promising Young Woman, the new film starring Carey Mulligan, that when it arrives it does so with such unexpected and apparent sincerity that one is, temporarily, thrown off balance. In it, Cassie (Mulligan), a medical school dropout-cum-coffee-shop-barista, is on a date with Ryan (played rather too perspicaciously by Bo Burnham), the guy who has been courting her affections with varying degrees of success for most of the movie and who, having made some headway, was distressed to catch Cassie in a handful of lies and at least one compromising situation outside of a night club a few scenes prior. Never mind, though: the scene in question immediately succeeds one in which the would-be lovers make amends. Now they’re in a pharmacy (reasons unclear) while Paris Hilton’s rapturous 2005 hit “Stars Are Blind” plays over the pharmacy sound system. Cassie notices Ryan singing along to the first verse and teases him for knowing the lyrics, which only encourages him. Soon, he’s singing and dancing around the store, using the various wares as props and making a genuine though endearing spectacle of himself. Cassie eventually joins him, in the process revealing her own deep knowledge of the zeitgeist of the early aughts. The scene becomes a montage, with shots cutting between Cassie and Ryan at the pharmacy to Cassie and Ryan in bed watching TV, or Cassie and Ryan in bed having breakfast, or Cassie and Ryan having pizza with Cassie’s manager, or Cassie and Ryan kissing at the coffee shop. You get the idea.