Promising Young Woman: An Unsettling, “Must See” Social Work Exploration
by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD
Promising Young Woman is an extraordinary, unnerving, utterly unpredictable film written and directed by Emerald Fennell in her directorial debut. (Pennell played Camilla Bowles in The Crown, and was the showrunner for the second season of BBC’s Killing Eve.) It is also a rightfully angry artistic endeavor and statement. The starring role is gifted by the extraordinarily talented Carey Mulligan (who shuns any semblance of traditional roles. Do not miss The Dig). This is not a film that our clients (or we) can turn to for direction in healing loss or trauma. Nor is it meant to be. Rather, it confronts myriad issues that social workers face ourselves and with our clients day in and day out. It is a “must see” because even those who dislike the film are left with a compelling need to talk, share, and process issues that must be confronted—today, tomorrow, forever.
The world that Mulligan and Fennell create opens in a bar where an apparently inebriated Cassie (Mulligan) is slumped and alone. This morphs into an unimaginable experience. Soon, we see that Cassie works in a pretty pastel coffee shop, after dropping out of med school, and has moved back to her pretty pastel home, where her parents (especially her mom) are neither pleased nor subtle. Their 30th birthday gift (a birthday Cassie has overlooked) is a suitcase. The plot revolves around why Cassie left her training and teases a universal theme—what it takes for a woman to trust a man (Bo Burnham) offering love.
Promoted as “black comedy,” yes, there are moments in Promising Young Woman when a smile begins; yet it will soon die. The film is also promoted as a mystery, and it surely is—one that keeps viewers on the edge of our seats. Every time you think you know how events will unfold, you will be wrong—oh, so wrong. For the plot is never what it seems to be—until it is. As portrayed by Fennell and Mulligan (and a superb ensemble cast), viewers are offered cotton candy in a seemingly sweet, soft-hued community, where following the first couple of bites, a poisonous snake arises again and again from the sugary goo.
As I experienced this film, several professionally related reflections and associations took on an intense life of their own. Because further specific discussion of the film’s incalculable twists, turns, intricacies, and resolve will lead to spoilers and intrude on viewer experience, these reflections are listed below:
Cassie’s name is a shortened version of Cassandra, the beautiful and appealing Trojan priestess. Apollo offers Cassandra the gift of seeing the future, but with a price—to submit to him. Cassandra accepts the gift, yet refuses to submit. (She says “No!”) Her punishment is to see and warn of the future. Yet, never to be believed. How often have we, as social workers, been in a situation where necessary programming is not provided for our clients, but no one will believe or hear us when we address dire lapses? How often have we worked with women who have said “No,” yet have been raped, often by several, as others look drunkenly on, laughing sadistically?
How often have we, as social workers, experienced secondary trauma, where we take on the trauma of a client or a beloved, and become emotionally stymied? How often have we seen our clients trapped in a similar wheel to nowhere? How often have we seen traumatized teens, as well as adults, too overwhelmed to accept the responsibilities of adulthood?
To turn to shame and humiliation: They are different. Humiliation comes from the outside: One holds a quiet, private, dark secret (often a horrid one), which is exposed. Familiar? The source of shame is a deep, internal, depleting belief that one is defective. When shamed and not supported, an internal feeling of worthlessness becomes overwhelming, and can morph into the belief that life is no longer worth living. Again, familiar?
Let’s also speak of betrayal: Social workers know well that when a trusted, relied upon friend or lover betrays, especially in an hour of youthful need and vulnerability, the metaphor of snake in the cotton candy of one’s innocence is apt.
This brings us to the nomination process of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, two years before Promising Young Woman came to life. Did you believe the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford? Did the horror she went through to protect the integrity of our highest court leave you distraught? I have worked for more than 30 years with adults who have been sexually abused in their youth. I have never had even one client show signs of lying.
Further, our work with those who mourn a beloved partner, child, or friend who is chosen family shows that, yes, the piercing, breath defying pain of loss will ease, and yes, life will go on, along with our capacity for joy. Still, mourning, though less intense, remains. And waves of intense loss will, on occasion, when least expected, overwhelm. This is as it should be. It is our enduring love letter.
And finally, how often have you seen “Promising Young Men” nurtured, supported, advanced? In contrast, “Promising Young Women” have ever fought an uphill battle to find respect, choice, voice, including our fore-mothers starving themselves, chaining themselves, and being imprisoned in order for their daughters to finally receive the right to vote.
SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD, whose private and pro bono clinical social work practice is in Philadelphia, is a certified group psychotherapist and family life educator. She is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (2004) and the Social Worker of the Year (2018) from the Pennsylvania chapter of NASW, and the 2013 NASW Media Award for Best Article. In 2018, she was one of five graduates of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice selected for the school’s inaugural Hall of Fame. SaraKay is the author of Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work.
