Actress Carey Mulligan sings “New York, New York,” uninterrupted, for nearly five minutes in 2011’s Shame. It’s a terrific performance, but it’s got nothing on her rendition of — no offense to Liza and Frank — a much better song in Promising Young Woman.
In the directorial debut from Killing Eve writer Emerald Fennell, Mulligan plays Cassie, a former-medical student who seeks out revenge against men who take advantage of women, including a toxic “nice guy” played by Bo Burnham. In one scene, the comedian and Eighth Grade filmmaker and Mulligan perform “a full karaoke rendition” of Paris Hilton’s 2006 Billboard-charting single, “Stars Are Blind.” The song was much-maligned at the time, but its reputation has (correctly) improved over the years, and Fennell told the Hollywood Reporter that it needed to be in Promising Young Woman because “you would immediately love any man that knew every word of that song”:
“It was a matter of begging Paris to let us have it before shooting,” she said, adding that Mulligan and Burnham “pulled out the performance of a lifetime” when singing the song. Mulligan added, “It was so embarrassing. A lot of it was Bo and I singing Paris Hilton at the top of our lungs with no music in this completely silent empty pharmacy with 30 crew members staring at us.”
Between the “Stars Are Blind” karaoke (a legit bop) and the “Toxic” cover, Promising Young Woman — which opens on December 25 after being delayed since April — is doing wonders for mid-2000s pop. I hope “Don’t Cha” plays over the end credits.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)