by Eugenia Tzirtzilaki

I first heard about Promising Young Woman as a film so relevant it should be taught in schools. A few days later, skimming through facebook, I read on a friend’s wall: “Promising Young Woman is one of the worst films I’ve seen in a long time. And it’s now nominated for a golden globe award. Can someone explain to me what is going on?” As the women around me kept calling Promising brilliant and “to the point”, I realized that the whole “point” was invisible to many. My friend explained his disdain: “The writing is so bad. From Laverne Cox’s character who didn’t need to be in the film, not because she wasn’t great, but because the role was a filler without any arc, to Mulligan’s unconvincing wrath, story holes were so deep you could fall and break your back.” Why were we reading the same choices so differently? Was there a symbolism to the script (which ended up winning an Oscar), that he was missing?

There is a density that women might perceive more easily because of the overlapping similarities of the film’s story to Συνέχεια →