Promising Young Woman

I probably irked everyone in the theater with my incessant sobbing

Cassie, once at the top of her class, dropped out after her closest friend, Nina, was attacked at a party. Now, thirty years old and working at a coffee shop, Cassie spends her nights deceiving predators at bars as an act of justice. When she learns that Nina's attacker is a now a successful, engaged man, Cassie sets out to earn true justice on Nina's behalf.
Promising Young Woman is more than a film about sexual assault and predatory men; it is a message about to what lengths society will go to dismiss and silence survivors. Cassie's pain, particularly in the latter half of the movie, is visceral (hence my incessant sobbing) and an accurate depiction of what survivors and their allies endure. As a fellow survivor of sexual assault, I have rarely felt like I was seen quite like when I watched this piece for the first time. This film is critical viewing, both for survivors to know they are heard and for bystanders to know their silence has grave consequences.