Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell points out a flaw in John Wick, using it as an example for revenge movies more broadly. Making her feature-length directorial debut after serving as the showrunner for Killing Eve season 2, Promising Young Woman centers around the character of Cassie Thomas (Carey Mulligan). Making the difficult decision to leave her bright future behind when her best friend becomes a victim of rape, Cassie seeks to punish those responsible for what happened. A blend of dark humor and personal drama, the film has been lauded by both critics and audiences.
Still, the ending of Promising Young Woman has proved controversial for some. This is largely due to the way that Fennell’s feature subverts expectations, veering off into a different conclusion than most audiences expected. It’s since been noted that the ostensibly empowering revenge thriller serves, in fact, as a clever examination and ultimately an indictment of the genre as a whole. In a new interview, where Fennell discusses her film in-depth, it becomes clear that the director and screenwriter of Promising Young Woman thought very deeply about the story she was hoping to tell.
Speaking with Vulture, Fennell brought up the Keanu Reeves franchise John Wick as an example of the potentially harmful fantastical quality to revenge films. The director noted that, while she loved John Wick, the legendary assassin must have a difficult time living with himself. Fennell’s quote has been included below.
‘Actually, I did like that dog. Don’t get me wrong, it was a really cute dog. But I feel like the 7,000 people I’ve killed’ … And it’s not to say I don’t completely adore John Wick. But I do think that, a bit like romantic comedies, [movies like it] necessarily end with a moment of triumph. Because the aftermath of this journey, which I think we see here, is incredibly unpleasant.
Imagining a conversation that Wick has with himself, perhaps as he’s trying to watch some TV, Fennell gets to the root of the problem with how action films often fuse revenge into the plot. Revenge is often presented as a glamorous and righteous endeavor. And, even when it’s not, even when the movies do attempt to grapple with the psychological ramifications of a life consumed by rage, the cool fights and intriguingly stoic protagonists tend to drown out any moral that might get through to viewers. And, certainly, John Wick has its share of cool fights. Fennell seems to be arguing that the punishment often doesn’t fit the crime in these types of movies. And, more generally, that it’s based around an unrealistic depiction.
To its credit, the John Wick franchise is well aware that the main character is on an undesirable path. The trilogy has often featured scenes where Wick is questioned about how he’s spending his life. And, in the most recent installment, subtitled Parabellum, a fair amount of running time is spent on illustrating the emptiness of Wick’s existence. Some fans have resisted these intrusions into the otherwise appealing narrative of the franchise, just as others have found that Promising Young Woman goes too far in its closing stretch. These reactions might ultimately serve to prove Fennell’s point.
Source: Vulture
