One of most poorly shot, tonally catastrophic, badly directed films I’ve ever had the misfortune of experiencing in my entire life, was nominated for ‘best director’.

The arts need curatorial expertise. And we need to be able to develop that decoupled from institutional bias. By which I mean, we don’t need the validation of irrelevant organizations. But we do need the ability to recognize both taste and the lack thereof.

Let me know when you’re ready to be honest about Promising Young Woman, a film that unfortunately advances an argument not against sexual violence, but instead against the people behind this film being allowed to ever make another.

I’m willing to accept anyone’s defense of obvious and heavy handed visual metaphors and an unsophisticated commitment to centered shots, I enjoyed the colorful pastry case in the movie. But the film is an insult to the subjects it traffics in. Don’t ask me to celebrate it.

And for the record, the film didn’t need to advance anything at all. It just should not have put me through a woman who chooses to get fingered by mclovin etc every week only to be slowly strangled by another dude so that the cops can come in to dole out the ‘real justice’.

As it is, a perfect film for the death throes of white girlboss feminism. Telling us a white woman is a powerful feminist hero, giving her all the aesthetic accoutrements of being just and true, but ultimately her satisfaction is rooted in becoming a victim.

And it is only then, when she is a victim, when the role of administering justice falls to the police, that she ‘gets her last laugh’ - without irony or incredulity but with her endorsement. Truly tragic waste of a premise and poor addition to the essential genre of rape revenge.

I wanted to see men die. That’s what the trailer teased. Instead I had to watch a woman be slowly, torturously killed, after wasting her time consciously pretending to be unconscious so that guys could take her home. Whereupon she shows how sober she is and then... leaves.

I’m not worried about spoiling the film for others, if anything I want to protect them from the experience. I had the misfortune of the receiving the same treatment the men she takes home have, being offered one thing only to be severely disappointed.

The important difference being, those men can still easily assault her. Her pretense offers no safety or advantage. She doesn’t even carry a weapon. Just misdirected angst.

We have no reason to believe the friend, who experienced the horrific assault that drives the movie, even wants any of this done in her name. And that’s right, our heroine wasn’t the one brutalized. But true to girl is white feminism centers herself in someone else’s trauma.

This film is a case study in how to make every wrong choice possible. The most interesting elements are ignored, like the way campus assault cases are tried as described by the lawyer (who for no reason receives absolution for his confession of guilt)

The film is not feminist, it’s exploitative. It even grossly references an actual rape survivor of campus assault. What the film is, is very Catholic.

Not just in its imagery, but in its politics and handling of the subject too. images via https://twitter.com/bbw_bff/status/1352879299569717248

There is so much more to say about this film, its marketing, its aesthetic, its plot points, its reception. But what should never be said of it, is that it is a ‘good’ film. It is harmful to the subjects it purports to cover.

If you don’t care about that harm, or the handling of the subject - sure, fine. It’s still not a good movie. Some performances are good, but not enough to save the writing and tonal nightmare of its direction. Even a fan of sexual violence would be offended by the execution.