Carey Mulligan is back with a vengeance in the first look at new feature film Promising Young Woman, with cinephiles taking to social media to rave about the revenge flick's trailer.
Written and directed by Emerald Fennell, known for her work on Killing Eve, the trailer for Promising Young Woman sees Mulligan's character, Cassie, trawl seedy bars, pretending to be drunk to the point of incapacitation. Then, when young men predictably come to her 'rescue', leading her back to their homes to take advantage of her confused state, Mulligan sits up and stops them right in their tracks.
"I said, what are you doing?"
It's action-packed and includes a killer orchestral cover of Britney Spears song 'Toxic'.
The film's official synopsis reads: "From visionary director Emerald Fennell (Killing Eve) comes a delicious new take on revenge."
The description continues: "Everyone said Cassie (Carey Mulligan) was a promising young woman… until a mysterious event abruptly derailed her future. But nothing in Cassie’s life is what it appears to be: she’s wickedly smart, tantalisingly cunning, and she’s living a secret double life by night.
"Now, an unexpected encounter is about to give Cassie a chance to right the wrongs of the past in this thrilling and wildly entertaining story."
Watching the trailer, we learn that Cassie was once med student looking forward to a bright future - until an undisclosed event lead to her dropping out. Seemingly fueled by this event, Cassie hunts down predatory men, teaching them a lesson.
One particularly powerful moment in the teaser shows a male character telling Cassie that it's "every man's worst nightmare" to be accused of sexual assault.
Her response?
"Can you guess what every women's worst nightmare is?"
Needless to say, social media users are already very into it - with many applauding the movie's title, which references a common descriptor used by mainstream media outlets when covering sexual assault cases (ie. an abuser deserves leniency because he's a "promising young man").
Predictably, others were a little less into it.
"Can't imagine why..."
