A vibrant tale of revenge done with a social conscious heartbeat, Promising Young Woman blends simmering rage, dark humour, and a standout performance by Carey Mulligan to make for a tense-filled exploration into justice unfulfilled and vengeance unquenched.

Promising Young Woman takes its inspiration from recent cases of sexual abuse and violence against women at college campuses in America, with specific reference to the 2016 Brock Turner case, in which the Stanford University student and convicted rapist was once described as a “promising young man”.

The film stars Carey Mulligan as Cassie, a medical school dropout who now spends her nights pretending to be stumbling drunk in a ploy to entrap potential abusers into revealing their true selves, before Cassie turns the tables in the scenario. Interestingly, Promising Young Woman writer and director Emerald Fennell mostly stays away from showing depictions of violence, with Cassie’s choice of weapon a scorn filled psychological attack in which she stuns her attackers into almost whimpering submission.

Mulligan is devastatingly good as the psychologically and emotionally scarred Cassie. With a horrific rape upon her childhood friend as motivation, Cassie dons different disguises as a Gen-Y lady of vengeance. Mulligan inhabits the role with a searing intelligence and shark-like focus that masks a shattered psyche that has lost all trust and hope in mankind. Hunter, seductress, vigilante, and fractured soul, Mulligan delivers on all facets of what must be the most challenging role of her career so far.

Equally impressive is the emergence of Emerald Fennell as writer and director, with her feature film debut one that pops and simmers with equal bluster. Despite the dark tone of the films subject matter, Promising Young Woman dons a bright and vibrant look, pinks and blues and whites especially prevalent, while the appearance of crimson red startles with its violent undertones, cinematographer Benjamin Kracun (Beast) and production designer Michael Perry (Under the Silver Lake) creating an almost candy land like atmosphere in which there are no shadows for these characters to hide.

Fennell is clearly not interested in presenting a gritty, grimy tale of revenge. No rain is going to wash the scum away. Fennel wants the crimes of her films “fortunate sons” and their abettors to be seen in the light, and the revenge placed upon them to be even more transparent.