December 31, 2020 – Revenge movies are a dime a dozen, but this one is a dazzling, unusual retribution movie (as opposed to a revenge movie). Revenge movies have very simple plot lines, but this film held any number of surprises for me at each turn. Just when I thought I knew what would happen next, it surprised me again.

Carey Mulligan (“Suffragette”) stars as Cassandra “Cassie” Thomas, a mysterious woman with a double life as a coffee shop worker who transforms into a seductive woman at night who delights in catching men in morally compromising sexual advances. She pretends to be drunk and vulnerable until she finds out just how far her would-be would be attacker is willing to go.

She is funny, sarcastic and extremely clever, humiliating those who make the mistake of thinking she is easy prey. It turns out there is a dark reason for her behavior. Her best friend, Nina, was raped in college. Cassie dropped out of college to care for her emotionally devastated friend, whom nobody else believed. Nina's attackers went unpunished, and Nina committed suicide.

It becomes clear that Cassie, a college dropout, is unable to get past the death of Nina, and is unable to get on with her own life. She finally does meet a man who interests her romantically, Ryan Cooper (played by Bo Burnham of “The Big Sick”) a doctor who was a classmate of Cassie's at medical school.

After a series of stops and starts, Cassie seems to be ready to move on with her life, until some new emotional revelations about Nina's death set her off on a dark path again, and this time, she's really getting serious about retribution.

What really sets this movie apart is the way that Cassie goes about getting retribution. In most revenge movies, this is done simply and brutally with a gun, but Cassie uses clever psychological warfare. She manipulates events and scenarios that put people into situations where they can experience the same kind of fear and emotional pain that Cassie and Nina experienced.

The roller coaster of Cassie's emotional ups and downs also makes this a powerful film. Like Cassie's victims, we gradually feel the depth of Cassie's emotional distress as the movie moves forward to its final conclusion. This story, masterfully woven by writer-director Emerald Fennell has equal elements of dark comedy and drama. There are some fascinating twists at the end of the film as well. This movie rates an A.

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