Carey Mulligan flips the script

After a career spent mostly in period dramas, the British actor is out of corsets but still dealing with the same type of men - bad ones.

Carey Mulligan's Cassie on her quest for revenge in Promising Young Woman. Merie Weismiller Wallace/Focus Features via AP

Kyle Buchanan

Jan 9, 2021 – 12.00am

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Not every Carey Mulligan movie begins with a Charli XCX song, but maybe more of them should. When Promising Young Woman deploys the 2017 pop bop Boys in its opening moments, it's the first sign you're about to get something from Mulligan that you're not used to: namely, a contemporary setting.

"I know that for a cinema audience, I'm just constantly in period costume," Mulligan says, shrugging her shoulders in an oversize red sweater.