Promising Young Woman

Cassie Thomas is a 30-year-old woman who lives in Ohio with her parents. Years earlier, she was in medical school. However, after her best friend Nina Fisher was raped by their classmate Al Monroe, and the school and legal system failed her, Nina and Cassie dropped out. It is implied that Nina eventually committed suicide. By night, Cassie now goes to clubs and feigns drunkenness to get a man to take her home. She waits for them to attempt to take advantage of her and then reveals her sobriety.

At the coffee shop where she works, Cassie encounters a former classmate, Ryan Cooper. He asks her out and mentions during their first date that Al is getting married. Cassie begins a plan to exact revenge on those she holds responsible for Nina's rape and death. She first invites an old friend, Madison McPhee, who disbelieved Nina's accusation, to lunch and gets her drunk, then has a man she hired take Madison to her hotel room. After the incident, Cassie ignores all her calls.

Next, Cassie targets Elizabeth Walker, the medical school dean who dismissed Nina's case due to lack of evidence. Cassie pretends to be a makeup artist for a band that Walker's teenage daughter Amber loves and tricks Amber into getting into her car. Later, Cassie meets Walker under the pretense of resuming her education and questions her about the events that led to Nina's dropout and death. When Walker explains away her actions, Cassie tells her she dropped Amber off at a dorm room with drunk male students. After a frightened Walker apologizes for her inaction, Cassie reveals Amber is safe at a local diner. Meanwhile, Cassie enters a relationship with Ryan.

Cassie visits Jordan Green, Al's lawyer who harassed Nina into dropping her charges. When Green expresses remorse for his actions, having suffered a mental breakdown over his guilt, Cassie forgives him. After visiting Nina's mother, who urges her to move on, Cassie abandons the rest of her revenge plans.

One day, Cassie finds Madison waiting outside her house, desperate to know what happened after their lunch. Cassie reassures her that nothing happened. In response, Madison gives Cassie an old phone containing a video of Nina's rape. As she watches the video, Cassie is shocked to see Ryan among the bystanders. She confronts him and threatens to release the video unless he tells her where Al's bachelor party is being held. Ryan tells her and begs for forgiveness, but Cassie refuses.

Cassie arrives at Al's bachelor party as a stripper, drugging Al's friends and taking Al upstairs. She handcuffs him to a bed and reveals herself. However, as she tries to carve Nina's name into Al's stomach, he breaks free and suffocates her. The next morning, Al's friend Joe consoles him and helps him burn Cassie's body. Cassie's parents file a missing person report, and the police begin to investigate. A detective questions Ryan, but Ryan does not reveal where Cassie was going and suggests she was mentally unwell.

During Al's wedding reception, as Juice Newton's Angel of the morning is playing, it is revealed that Cassie had sent Green the phone with the video of Nina's rape, along with information on where she was going and who would be responsible if she went missing. As a result, the police had found her burnt remains. At the reception, the police arrest Al, while Joe flees and Ryan receives several scheduled texts from Cassie, signed with her and Nina's names.

Emerald Fennell devised the concept of the film in 2017, and sold the script to Margot Robbie's production company LuckyChap Entertainment after pitching the opening scene.[3] In January 2019, it was announced Carey Mulligan had joined the cast of the film, with Fennell directing.[4] In March 2019, Bo Burnham, Alison Brie, Connie Britton, Adam Brody, Jennifer Coolidge, Laverne Cox, Max Greenfield, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Sam Richardson, and Molly Shannon joined the cast, [5] with Angela Zhou and Clancy Brown joining in April.[6][7] Principal photography began in Los Angeles on March 26, 2019,[8] lasting 23 days.[9]

In February 2019, Focus Features acquired distribution rights to the film.[10] It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2020.[11] It was initially scheduled to be released theatrically on April 17, 2020,[12] but was pulled from the schedule due to the closures of movie theaters that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.[13] It was eventually released on December 25, 2020,[14] and was released on video on demand on January 15, 2021.[15][16]

• Official website
• Promising Young Woman at IMDb
• Complete script by Emerald Fennell