In Promising Young Woman, Carey Mulligan gives a haunting performance as Cassie, a former medical student whose life was forever changed after her best friend Nina was raped during a drunken college party. A sham investigation failed to hold anyone accountable, leading Nina to drop out of school. Cassie left as well to care for her, but by the time the story begins, Nina has died.
The details of her death are never revealed, but the loss defines Cassie’s existence. She now lives with her parents, her once-promising career abandoned, her days spent quietly, and her nights consumed by a secret purpose rooted in grief and guilt.
Cassie’s mourning transforms into a disturbing nightly routine. She visits bars pretending to be heavily intoxicated, inviting the “help” of men who see her as an easy target. When they inevitably attempt to take advantage of her, Cassie suddenly reveals that she is completely sober, exposing their predatory behavior.
After each encounter, she records a mark in a notebook, both satisfied and heartbroken. Her form of revenge is psychological rather than violent. By confronting these men with their own hypocrisy, she forces them to recognize the ugliness of their actions. Yet every act of vengeance deepens her sadness, showing how revenge can offer justice but not healing.
Cassie’s lonely life briefly brightens when she reconnects with Ryan, a kind and funny former classmate played by Bo Burnham. Their relationship seems to open a door to the normal, happy life Cassie might have lived if Nina’s assault had never happened. For a moment, she believes she can let go of her anger.
However, this hope collapses when Cassie discovers that Ryan was present during Nina’s rape and did nothing to stop it. The evidence comes from Madison, a former friend who provides Cassie with a video of the incident. The revelation devastates Cassie, destroying her trust in Ryan and renewing her determination to finish what she started.
Carey Mulligan as Cassandra (Promising Young Woman/Universal Pictures)Cassie’s Final Plan Turns Her Tragic Death Into Strategic Posthumous Revenge
Cassie’s investigation leads her to Al Monroe, the man who assaulted Nina. He is now a successful professional celebrating his bachelor party at a remote cabin. Cassie disguises herself as a nurse-themed stripper, drugs the other men, and takes Al upstairs. She handcuffs him to the bed and demands that he confess.
The confrontation turns deadly when Al breaks free and suffocates her with a pillow. The scene is agonizingly long and silent, lasting nearly two minutes, forcing the audience to confront the brutality of the act. The moment rejects the fantasy of easy revenge and replaces it with grim realism. Cassie’s mission ends not in triumph but in tragedy.
The next morning, Al’s friend Joe discovers Cassie’s body. Instead of reporting the crime, he helps Al burn her remains in an attempt to erase all evidence. It appears that Cassie’s quest for justice has ended in failure and that Al will once again escape consequences.
Director Emerald Fennell originally wanted the film to end at this point, offering a stark reflection of how society often protects men like Al. However, producers encouraged her to craft a slightly different conclusion. The final version keeps Cassie’s death intact but allows her to achieve a symbolic victory even from beyond the grave.
Cassie’s careful planning ensures that her death is not the end of her story. Before she went to the cabin, she sent key evidence about Nina’s assault to Al’s former defense lawyer, played by Alfred Molina. The lawyer, now filled with guilt for defending rapists in the past, gives the information to the police.
At Al’s wedding, as Juice Newton’s “Angel of the Morning” plays in the background, officers arrive to arrest him. At the same time, Ryan receives pre-scheduled text messages from Cassie’s phone. Her messages taunt him with cheerful sarcasm, ending with, “Enjoy the wedding! Love, Cassie & Nina.” Her final message is a winking emoticon, a darkly comic reminder that Cassie has the last word.
Carey Mulligan as Cassandra (Promising Young Woman/Universal Pictures)Emerald Fennell’s Realistic Vision Turns Cassie’s Tragic Death Into Empowered Feminist Justice
Emerald Fennell explained that she had once imagined a more conventional revenge ending, where Cassie kills her abusers and walks away triumphant. She ultimately rejected that version because it felt dishonest. In real life, a woman confronting a group of powerful men would rarely emerge unscathed. Fennell wanted to portray what would realistically happen, not a fantasy of empowerment.
Her final ending shows that Cassie’s death is both inevitable and meaningful. It exposes the dangers women face when standing up to entrenched systems of male privilege. The ending shocks audiences, but it also underscores the film’s honesty.
Both Fennell and Mulligan described Cassie as fully aware of the risks she was taking. A deleted scene even showed Cassie with a bruise from an earlier night gone wrong, emphasizing that she knew her actions could lead to violence. Mulligan explained that Cassie was “cavalier with her life” because she believed the cause justified the risk.
She no longer trusted anyone, not even Ryan, to help her seek justice. Her willingness to die for her mission gives her a tragic kind of heroism. Cassie’s death is heartbreaking, yet it also exposes the hypocrisy of those who claimed to care while protecting the guilty.
The smothering scene is one of the most disturbing moments in the film. Fennell insisted on filming it in real time without music, believing that cinematic violence should never be treated lightly. She consulted a retired police officer to determine how long suffocation would actually take and instructed the actors to follow that timing exactly.
Mulligan performed the scene herself without a stunt double, making the moment unbearably authentic. Filming it left the set silent. Even recording the sound effects later was emotionally difficult for Mulligan. The realism of this violence strips away any glamour, leaving only horror and empathy for Cassie’s suffering.
In the end, Promising Young Woman asks whether justice is possible in a world that refuses to believe women. Cassie’s story shows the cost of telling the truth and the price of refusing to move on. For a brief time, she imagines another path with Ryan, but his betrayal confirms that real happiness is impossible for someone who knows the truth.
Fennell described Cassie’s journey as ten years of self-inflicted pain, constant reopening of wounds, and gradual hardening of her heart. Her death finally brings exposure and retribution, achieving the justice Nina never received. The winking emoticon that ends the film symbolizes Cassie’s dark sense of humor and her ultimate triumph. Through death, she becomes both martyr and avenger, forcing the world to face the truth it tried so hard to bury.
