‘Promising Young Woman’ Isn’t Some Far-Fetched Revenge Fantasy—It Shows How I Actually Felt After My Assault

cosmopolitan.com:

Content warning: This story contains details about sexual assault and suicide.The film’s heroine, Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas, is at the top of her class in med school and on her way to becoming a doctor when her best friend Nina Fischer is raped by a classmate while intoxicated.

A gaggle of khaki-pants-clad medical students stand by watching, laughing, and filming. Traumatized, Nina drops out of college.

Cassie leaves med school too, trying to pick up the pieces of her shell of a best friend. But in the film, we don’t ever get to meet Nina, because Nina is dead.

The story begins in the wake of her death, her absence a character of its own. The first time we see Cassie, she’s center-frame, surrounded by a red vinyl cushioned wall.