Saw this yesterday. I think I need to give it two ratings, one for concept and one for execution: 9/10 for concept, but 4/10 for execution.
I have two main complaints with it:
1. IMO it's not written that well because we're not really given any reason to understand the motivations of the lead female character played by Carey Mulligan. I mean, Mulligan does really well with what she's given, but she's not actually given very much. The film is never specifically clear on exactly why she's doing what she's doing. And a pivotal scene that actually goes into what happened in the past only plays the audio from the event, rather than showing anything visual. If we're (as an audience) supposed to empathize with Mulligan's character, we need something more than that and shown early on in the film. Something like a flashback (blurred out to avoid showing the "worst" parts) would've been far more effective. As it is, the majority of her motivation just wasn't there, and way too much storytelling was implied. The film doesn't even specifically acknowledge that Cassie's friend was raped until after it's more than halfway through.
Also, for a film about a leading character that actually affected the character's friend, there was a big disconnect between those two characters. It really needed to show the friend character in some way.
2. It was also a bit....tame, considering what the trailers seemed to suggest. The opening scene with Adam Brody's character cut away just when it seemed like it was going to get interesting. I wanted to know what happened right after that cut, but the film never returned to it, leaving it to the audience's imagination. Other "interactions" with other guys also just abruptly cut off, and left too much to the imagination of Cassie's character. The film certainly implied that she'd been doing the drunk act for a while, but never made it clear how "far" she was going in these previous encounters. Was she always just talking to these guys and giving them a piece of her mind? Or getting physically violent with them too? Even in one of the final scenes when we think Cassie is finally going to get violent with a certain guy, she doesn't.
For a film that was rated R, I was actually expecting more violence, edginess, and "bite" from the film that it could've delivered, but just didn't. Honestly I'm not sure why it got rated R even, because it sure seemed like it could've gotten away with PG-13.
Still an interesting and provocative film nonetheless, but I was expecting more from it, which better writing could've solved.
