I wrote about this movie for Flipscreen.
"A smorgasbord of laughs. Every single element—every line of dialogue, every object in frame, every music cue—everything that possibly could be funny, is funny. There is no effort made at realism, and not once do the characters merely say what needs to be said to move the plot along. Every joke in the movie is too good to spoil, but here are a few out of context: a divorcing couple tells the dog…
Every time I was ready to write this off as pointless violence porn something would happen that would catch my eye and I'd end up intrigued enough by this screwed-up bizarro fantasy to keep on watching... not exactly my thing, but it did make me curious about the rest of Sion Sono's filmography. Really horrific. Not an easy one to keep your eyes on.
The problem with Promising Young Woman is the same problem with most movies that have a good point to make: it keeps making it! The characters who uphold the patriarchy—mainly men who commit acts of sexual violence, but also a few women who empower them through complacency—are straight out of either an SNL sketch or a sexual harassment training video. They say all the stereotypical things a rape apologist might say, like ‘well if she was drinking…’ or ‘we can’t…
Reviewed in full at Movies Champion
I watched this a few years ago and thought it was boring. I’m very glad I revisited. It’s an eerie, expansive vision of how we humans alternate between immersing ourselves in nature and insulating ourselves from it, how we embrace some mysteries but fear others and how the biggest mystery of all is the one we have no choice but to embrace, the one from which all the dialysis in the world can’t keep…
