Carey Mulligan stars in "Promising Young Woman" as Cassie, a femme fatale finding justice in a post-Me Too era.

Generally, movie critiques deconstructe&nbsp;the technical elements of a film and its performers, meaning&nbsp;they evaluate acting, scriptwriting, character construction, etc. However,&nbsp;Variety&nbsp;recently apologized for a <a href="https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/promising-young-woman-review-1203480660/" target="_blank">controversial review</a> of <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/promising-young-woman-carey-mulligan-costumes-nancy-steiner-emerald-fennell" target="_blank">Promising Young Woman</a> from early 2020, near the original release date,&nbsp;which the film&#39;s star Carey Mulligan characterized as&nbsp;questioning whether she was attractive enough for her role.

The review, written by veteran Variety writer&nbsp;Dennis Harvey,&nbsp;suggests that <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/margot-robbie-mary-queen-of-scots" target="_blank">Margot Robbie</a>, a producer on the film, would have been a better fit for the role, as she is&nbsp;aesthetically better suited to play a &quot;femme fatale&quot; character. Harvey&nbsp;wrote,&nbsp;&ldquo;Mulligan, a fine actress, seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale&mdash;Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her.&nbsp;Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/fashion/best-drag-queen-fashion-of-all-time-rupauls-drag-race" target="_blank">drag</a>; even her long <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/beauty/best-purple-shampoos-blonde-hair-at-home" target="_blank">blonde</a> hair seems a put-on.&quot;

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Speaking to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/23/movies/carey-mulligan-promising-young-woman.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a>&nbsp;almost 11 months after the review&#39;s publication, the Oscar-nominated actress shared her take on the piece. &ldquo;It felt like it was basically saying that I wasn&rsquo;t hot enough to pull off this kind of ruse,&rdquo; said Mulligan.

Following this interview, Variety apologized to Mulligan for the article&#39;s &quot;insensitive language&quot; used to describe her&nbsp;&quot;daring performance.&quot;

In a coversation with <a href="https://www.lofficielusa.com/film-tv/malcolm-&amp;-marie-zendaya-john-david-washington-netflix-trailer" target="_blank">Zendaya</a> for Variety&#39;s &quot;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjjvIOoP0t0" target="_blank">Actors on Actors</a>&quot; series, Mulligan said that criticism should be &quot;constructive&quot; and that physical appearance should not be a factor. Although the actress said she did not feel personally despised by the comments, she does take issue&nbsp;with what reflect&nbsp;in a broader sense. &quot;I think that in&nbsp;criticizing or bemoaning the lack of attractiveness on my part in a character, it wasn&#39;t a personal slight,&quot; Mulligan explained. &quot;But it made me concerned that&mdash;in such a big publication&mdash;that an actress&#39;s appearance can be&nbsp;criticized and that can be accepted as completely reasonable criticism.&quot;

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Carey Mulligan Responds to Magazine's Apology for 'Promising Young Woman' Review

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