Designers Behind ‘Shirley,’ ‘Hillbilly Elegy’ and ‘Promising Young Woman’ Discuss the Craft

Emerald Fennell’s directorial debut Promising Young Woman could have easily been your classic revenge fantasy thriller, with its tale of Cassie, a grief-stricken, silently enraged woman on a mission to expose every last sexual predator in town. Only it’s so much more.

“Emerald [Fennell] wanted Cassie to look much more cheerful than she actually was. A character like that, that’s kind of depressed, and doesn’t have much of a life, and is kind of living in the past, you might think they would just not care about the way they look, or just dress darkly, or not be as perky—pastels, and colors, and flowers, and feminine. And I loved that Emerald wanted to twist it up that way.” — Nancy Steiner

Specialty box office titles and those that also have their foot in the wide release landscape make up the majority of the top box office numbers of the weekend — which is pretty darn good all things considered.

Twelve years after she starred opposite Daniel Craig’s James Bond in “Quantum of Solace,” Gemma Arterton has expressed some regret over her breakout role.In a new interview with The Sun, Arterton said she still gets flak for playing MI6 agent Strawberry Fields in the 2018 blockbuster.

How talented is Emerald Fennell? So much so that in the span of two months she went tete-a-tete with Princess Diana as the indomitable Camilla Parker Bowles in Season 4 of “The Crown” and won the prestigious Best Screenplay honor from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her feature directorial debut, “Promising Young Woman.” And before the pandemic hit? Oh, she was just prepping a new “Cinderella” musical for the West End with some composer name Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Like the title suggests, Promising Young Woman brought a glimmer of promise to the specialty box office space. The Emerald Fennell-directed dramatic thriller starring Carey Mulligan debuted in 1,310 theaters in North America on December 25 earning an estimated $680K.

Promising Young Woman. In the newly-released thriller starring , a med-school dropout seeks revenge against the men responsible for her best friend’s demise.At first take, it’s hard to predict where writer-director Emerald Fennell is going with this story of rage meets requite.

Variety has apologized for its review of Carey Mulligan’s new movie.

Carey Mulligan’s latest film, the provocatively dark and twisted comedic thriller, “Promising Young Woman” — about a young woman, traumatized by a tragic event in her past, who seeks out vengeance against those who cross her path — has certainly sparked conversation on social media and within the film community.

Emerald Fennell—best known as Camilla Parker Bowles on seasons three and four of , as well as the showrunner on season two of —makes her directorial debut with Promising Young Woman, out December 25. She also wrote the comedy-thriller, which stars Carey Mulligan as a former medical student who takes revenge on the people involved in the rape of her best friend.

Variety’s review of her new movie saying it focuses on her looks and compares them to Margot Robbie.Also Read: Carey Mulligan Calls Out Variety Review That Said She 'Wasn't Hot Enough' for Role“I read the Variety review, because I’m a weak person,” Mulligan told the New York Times in an interview out Wednesday. “And I took issue with it.”“Promising Young Woman” centers on her character Cassie’s mission to catch men in the act of attempting to sleep with her when she’s seemingly very drunk.

Rotten Tomatoes, with a 16% rating among “Top Critics.” If there was a “Certified Rotten” label, Howard’s movie would have it.Also Read: Critics Call Ron Howard's 'Hillbilly Elegy' 'Laughably Horrendous,' 'Worst Film of His Career'This week, as you probably guessed by now, Netflix again dominated Nielsen’s weekly report. Only one non-Netflix program, Disney+’s “The Mandalorian,” infiltrated the Top 10 for the final full week of November.

Emerald Fennell wanted to write about female rage. Before #MeToo became ubiquitous, she had been thinking about complacency and the teen movies of her youth where consent was often little more than a throwaway joke.

Also Read: 'Sylvie's Love' Review: Tessa Thompson Pursues Love and Career in Swoon-Worthy Period RomanceCassie’s avoidance routine is interrupted by the arrival of an old classmate, Ryan (Bo Burnham), who professes a longtime crush on her and asks her out. Inadvertently, his presence also brings up painful memories for Cassie, which are slowly revealed to be a traumatic event that led to the end of her dreams of becoming a doctor.

Emerald Fennell could picture her lying in a bed as a man began to strip off her clothes. "" she would slur, then again as he moved to remove her underwear.

Written and directed by Emerald Fennell (Killing Eve), the Focus Features dramatic thriller Promising Young Woman has been a buzzy awards season title before its Christmas Day theatrical release. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association named Carey Mulligan Best Actress for her turn as the methodical Cassie who is out for revenge while Fennell received honors for Best Screenplay. The writer-director was also awarded the Milos Stehlik Breakthrough Filmmaker Award from the Chicago Film Critics.

Clayton Davis The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has completed its annual review of film submissions for the Golden Globe awards, and Variety has learned exclusively that many films and performances have been switched from the studios’ intended submissions.“Promising Young Woman” from Focus Features was switched from comedy to the drama categories.

Is it a #MeToo-era revenge thriller? A 21st-century “Fatal Attraction”? A candy-colored feminist polemic, to strains of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears? A black comedy? A comic tragedy?None of the above — and all of the above. Which is to say: a film as bracingly original as Emerald Fennell’s “Promising Young Woman" defies labels.Here’s a couple good adjectives, though: Startling — the only way to describe Fennell’s vision and execution in this, her directorial debut.