Although it was a sound bite that already caught on last year, as Promising Young Woman starts to gain a wider reach, it’s only natural that Dennis Harvey’s review of the movie has come up again of late in a far bigger way. After being released in movie theaters on Christmas Day (originally slated for March of 2020, before Miss Rona came to roost in the U.S. in all her glory), followed by a spike in interest with its inevitable awards season cachet–not that awards season even really exists anymore, but still–plenty of people are starting to take notice of the Emerald Fennell-directed feature. Promising Young Woman‘s “#MeToo”-inspired message, thus, has plenty of added clout when going up against Harvey’s original words regarding his take on the film. In fact, his statements are tailor-made to be used against him with the thematic content of a script like this.
The review in question, written for Variety, came out on January 26, 2020, the day after Promising Young Woman’s debut at the Sundance Film Festival. In it, Harvey offers up ample praise for the project, including, “…like everything here, this turn is skillful, entertaining and challenging, even when the eccentric method obscures the precise message.”
This comment, of course, comes after the now illustrious one questioning the casting choice of Carey Mulligan in the role of someone like Cassie Thomas, meant to be “hot” enough to lasso various men during her revenge quest. One that has been going on ever since her best friend, Nina, died. In pretending to be drunk at the club, Cassie doesn’t have much trouble in attracting the attention she’s looking for, and her “hotness” level isn’t really much of a factor here, so much as her state of inebriation. The ease with which a predator has in taking her less than mentally present self back to his abode.
But naturally, Mulligan took the criticism to heart when Harvey said, “Mulligan, a fine actress, seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale—Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her. Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag; even her long blonde hair seems a put-on.” In other words, more than a comment on attractiveness, it is a comment on Cassie’s (or Carey’s) ill-at-ease manner in the guise of “evil temptress” that she’s been forced to adopt in order to avenge what happened to her friend. The more affronting additional line Harvey adds that has actually been excluded from most media highlights of the “offensive” assessment in question is, “The flat American accent she delivers in her lowest voice register likewise seems a bit meta, though it’s not quite clear what the quote marks around this performance signify.”
Mulligan, in her response to what she chose to extrapolate from the review, largely positive, echoed a touch of the phenomenon that occurred between music critic Ann Powers and Lana Del Rey when she appraised Norman Fucking Rockwell. Del Rey glommed onto one sentence from the review, in which Powers commented, “This is not only about Del Rey’s persona as a bad girl to whom bad things are done; her supposed confessions would be nothing more than reality show fodder if not for the way she and her collaborators construct them.” In retaliation, Del Rey clapped back, “Never had a persona. Never needed one. Never will. I don’t even relate to one observation you made about the music. There’s nothing uncooked about me. To write about me is nothing like it is to be with me. So don’t call yourself a fan like you did in the article and don’t count your editor one either–I may never never have made bold political or cultural statements before–because my gift is the warmth I live my life with and the self-reflection I share generously.”
A similar outpouring of outrage came from Mulligan for being painted by Harvey as a potential case of miscasting (or possibly intended for another actress before Mulligan signed on). Mulligan stated of her take on the article, “I feel it’s important that criticism is constructive. I think it’s important that we are looking at the right things when it comes to work, and we’re looking at the art and we’re looking at the performance.” Billed as institutionalized sexism–and yes, gay men (for let’s not leave out in this instance that Harvey is not a hetero male a.k.a. public enemy number one) are often the most sexist of all–Mulligan seems to be ignoring the fact that no matter how much the “let’s-all-be-nice-and-polite-to-everyone-by-not-mentioning-anything-about-their-looks” train barrels at full-speed ahead, a large percentage of acting is based on how one appears. And if their appearance is right for a role. Case in point, the recent dissatisfaction with Nicole Kidman taking over for Cate Blanchett as Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos. No matter how much the PC Police continue to insist that looks aren’t a factor in how a performance is viewed by audiences, it always will be. Lest Mulligan would like to wave a magic wand allowing the masses to watch movies without really seeing. It stands to argue, then, that it is in the film critic’s wheelhouse to mention appearance in a review, should that be their prerogative, and especially if it’s something they’re finding distracting, detracting or absolutely fabulous (and one wonders if Mulligan would have had the same reaction if Harvey had said something more favorable about her “hotness”).
What’s more, any actor who gets into this business at this level should come to thicken their skin against any such scrutiny and commentary, because it’s literally the crux of their profession: being critiqued in part for their aesthetic. And being cast based on it as well. It’s not a dirty shame or secret, it’s simply how the business works, and has ever since its modern inception. This isn’t to say that there should not be more “inclusivity” with regard to body types, ages and “everyperson” actors, but that still doesn’t mean even those actors won’t get criticism for their performance based on how they look as well, and if this contributed to any clunkiness in believability. It’s just one of the many risks an aspirant takes in getting involved in the entertainment industry for an “in front of the camera” job. To Mulligan, however, it echoed the sentiments of the moment that seem determined to favor “realness” over “Hollywood glamor,” as she asserted, “We start to edit the way that women appear onscreen, and we want them to look a certain way. We want to airbrush them, and we want to make them look perfect. Or we want to edit the way that they work, the way they move and the way that they think and behave. And I think we need to see real women portrayed onscreen in all of their complexity. I felt that it was one small thing to point out that could be helpful.” To…? Well, certainly not the film critic or anyone in casting trying to offer a bit of glitz to a world filled with basics that we have to see every day. There are some audience members, believe it or not, who actually still look to movies as an escape. This includes, let’s say, a “1940s MGM effect” in being able to retreat into a realm where stars are truly stars as opposed to literally any beige asshole on the street. That’s not what Carey Mulligan is, but for the sake of the argument she’s making, that’s essentially what she’s angling for.
Yet far be it for anyone to dare trying to point that out in the current epoch, when everything is fodder for moral policing. The contempt expressed at the film critic in general for deigning to speak at all–accused of being nothing more than “those who couldn’t make it themselves” in the industry–is an increasing symptom of how all once great accoutrements of cinema are dying out. Most notably, in addition to unbiased criticism as an art unto itself, the theaters where one used to be able to escape to before the advent of COVID-19. Worse still, because of clickbait and social media allowing whatever sound bite the “press” wants to perpetuate to be perpetuated, the main takeaway anyone cursorily glancing at the saga might get out of it is that Harvey expressly said Mulligan wasn’t “hot enough” to play Cassie, which he never did. But they’re basing the assessment of supposed antiquated sexism on what Mulligan herself interpreted from the article: “[He] was basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough to pull off this kind of ruse.”
Uh, no. He was saying the truth, which is that he envisioned someone more associated with playing the manipulative femme fatale (Margot Robbie included), and someone with a dash more “polish” (but also that this actually ended up working in the storyline’s favor). It’s not unwarranted, it’s just part of his criticism. Still, Mulligan insisted, “It didn’t wound my ego.” Clearly, it did, or she wouldn’t have needed to go on about it, adding, “But it made me concerned that in such a big publication an actress’ appearance could be criticized and it could be accepted as completely reasonable criticism.” That is, again, the nature of being an actor. And yes, even men get examined for their appearance as well. Look no further than this critic calling out Chris Pine’s plastic surgery overkill being too noticeable in Wonder Woman 1984.
If you do not want to be critiqued for your appearance or “rightness” for a performance as an actor, then participate in nothing. Acknowledge that it’s an extremely degrading and demoralizing profession only made worth it when you reach the paycheck heights of the A-list celebrity. That should be the real bottom line here, not that a sixty-year-old homosexual is some kind of raging anti-feminist going unchecked by a major publication for his “venom.” In response to which Harvey stated, “I assumed that filmmakers who created such a complex, layered movie wouldn’t interpret what I wrote as some kind of simpleminded sexism. And while Carey Mulligan is certainly entitled to interpret the review however she likes, her projection of it suggesting she’s ‘not hot enough’ is, to me, just bizarre. I’m sorry she feels that way. But I’m also sorry that’s a conclusion she would jump to, because it’s quite a leap.” Again, because appearance does account for a large portion of how someone’s performance is taken in, Harvey is defending his right to mention it.
Alas, Variety capitulated to the furor, deciding to add an apology Editor’s Note as a sort of disclaimer at the top of the article, reading, “Variety sincerely apologizes to Carey Mulligan and regrets the insensitive language and insinuation in our review of Promising Young Woman that minimized her daring performance.” Whether Harvey’s job is “cancelled” remains to be seen. But even the fact that a discussion about firing him has stemmed from the review (now already a year old) signals a loud and clear death knell regarding the freedom to be honest, frank and candid with one’s opinion in film criticism. This includes talking about actors’ physical features, which do, indeed, play into performance, therefore how a movie is judged. Regardless of the gender or sexuality of the critic or actor.
