‘Promising young woman’: Carey Mulligan calls critic for comments on appearance

• Carey Mulligan called a review of Variety which she said implied she wasn’t “hot enough” for her new movie “Promising Young Woman.”
• In the movie, Mulligan plays a role where she acts like she’s drunk in bars and clubs, then wreaks havoc on the men who take her home and try to take advantage of her.
• In critic Dennis Harvey’s review, he wrote that Mulligan looks like someone with a “bad slut” and that the role would have been better suited for the film’s producer, Margot Robbie.
• “I was like ‘Really? “” Mulligan told The New York Times of the review. “For this film, are you going to write something so transparent? Now? In 2020?” I just couldn’t believe it. “
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Carey Mulligan called a movie critic who felt she was “a bit of an odd choice” for her role as “femme fatale” in her new movie “Promising Young Woman”.

In his review for Variety, critic Dennis Harvey hinted that Margot Robbie, who is the film’s producer, would have been better suited to play the lead role, Cassandra.

“One can (perhaps too easily) imagine that this role might once have been intended [Robbie], “Harvey wrote.” While with this star, Cassie wears her bait-collecting gear like a bad trail; even her long blonde hair seems put on. The flat American accent she delivers in her lower vocal range also sounds a bit meta, though what the quotes around this performance mean isn’t entirely clear. “

In a New York Times profile, Mulligan brought up the review of Variety when asked if she had read any of the critics’ take.

“I read Variety magazine because I’m a weak person,” she told Kyle Buchanan.

“I felt like it was basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough to pull off that kind of trick,” said Mulligan, who noted that she could still recite some of the lines from the review. .

“It made me so crazy,” she continued. “I was like, ‘Really?’ For this film, are you going to write something so transparent, now, in 2020? I just couldn’t believe it. “

Insider has reached out to Variety and Harvey for comment.

In the acclaimed dark drama, Mulligan plays Cassandra who cast a career in medicine to devote her life to wreaking havoc on men who prey on unsuspecting women.

She does this by acting drunk in bars and clubs and when the men pick her up and take her home, she reveals that she’s actually sober and makes the guy wish he’d never see her that night.

Harvey’s take is a nasty irony considering that the intention of the film’s director, Emerald Fennell, is to blow any expectations placed on women in society.

“We no longer allow women to appear normal, or like a real person,” Mulligan said in the Times article. “Why do all women who are on screen have to look like a supermodel? It has turned into something where the expectation of beauty and perfection on screen has spiraled out of control.”

“Promising Young Woman” hits theaters on December 25.

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