MIXED MEDIA: PLOTTING REVENGE

Vengeance narratives offer a cathartic thrill. But what version of justice are they serving?

- MADDIE OATMAN

ACT I

RAPE

HE HAS LURED her into his apartment, smeared her with cocaine, drenched her in opinions about Consider the Lobster as he inches closer to her on the futon. She is bleary-eyed, listless, her consonants soft at the edges. “I feel such a connection to you,” Neil assures her, before prying her bare legs apart with his hand. “I need a go home,” she says. “Noo, don’t go, stay,” he whispers, marking her neck with kisses. “Oh my god, you are so, so pretty.” “I need to go home,” she repeats, but instead his hands disappear under her skirt.

Then her eyes snap open. “Hey Neil,” she says, no longer drunk, her voice suddenly self-assured and lucid, her hand shooting out to grab his face: “I said I need to go home.”

If you’ve seen Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman, you anticipated this sudden reversal. In several of the film’s opening scenes, ultra-feminine Cassie, played by Carey Mulligan, tricks a random man into thinking she’s inebriated, follows along as he tries to hook up with her without her consent, and then 180s on him, abruptly casting off her intoxication to shame her would-be rapist in the act.

Her motivation trickles out as the film progresses: Cassie’s best friend, Nina, was raped while in medical school, causing her to drop out and then presumably to kill herself. After watching the man who assaulted Nina go unpunished, friends become complacent, and the school ignore the incident, Cassie steps into a new role: that of voracious avenger. Her ploys continue to escalate and become more destructive, riding the steady winds of her rage.