One of the best movies to come flying in under the radar towards the end of last year was Emerald Fennell’s feature debut Promising Young Woman. A revenge thriller for the #MeToo era, Carey Mulligan gives a career-best performance as a former medical student who gave up her studies after suffering a personal tragedy, and now seeks to serve predatory men with the justice she believes they deserve.
Fennell was a regular presence on our screens as an actress in numerous period pieces, but she’s recently moved behind the camera and landed two Emmy nominations for her role as showrunner on the acclaimed second season of Killing Eve, while Promising Young Woman is a hell of a calling card for a first-time director.
In a recent interview, the 35 year-old was discussing how the movie operated within the parameters of the thriller, and while admitting her love for the franchise, said that she thinks that John Wick may have gone a little overboard when it comes to doling out revenge.
“I mean, John Wick, my favorite of all time, there’s got to come a point where John Wick sits down and watches television and thinks,’F*ck me, I killed a lot of people. F*ck me, what have I been doing with my life lately?. 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 that necessarily end with a moment of triumph. Because the aftermath of this journey, which I think we see here, is incredibly unpleasant.”
When you think about it, the first three installments take place over the course of roughly a month, which means that Keanu Reeves’ sharp-suited assassin has left an incredible trail of destruction in his wake considering it’s only been about 30 days since his dog was killed. No wonder the rest of the criminal underworld considers him the Boogeyman if that’s what he can do in a few weeks, never mind the decades he’d previously spent as a top-tier resident of The Continental.
Of course, John Wick is glossy action-orientated escapism and Promising Young Woman takes place in a slightly heightened reality, so there’s no point making direct comparisons between the two, but it does get you wondering if Wick ever sits down and wonders about the bodies left in his wake.
