The Eclectic Cinema is back at Cheltenham Playhouse, after its summer break, with a varied programme of six films between now and Christmas. The first is Promising Young Woman (15), starring Carey Mulligan, on Monday 12 September. The show kicks off at 19:30 and tickets can be bought online, or on the door, for £7.50 each.

This one is in the Film for Today strand as the subject matter remains all too topical. The director and writer, Emerald Fennell, bagged both an Oscar and BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, and it was also the  BAFTA Outstanding British Film of 2021.

Mulligan, Oscar-nominated for performance in this film, plays Cassie. She’s 30, has dropped out of Med School, lives back at home and has a dead-end job in a coffee shop. Her only friend seems to be her boss (female), who tolerates her erratic work performance. At night she cruises the bars and clubs apparently getting so drunk she can hardly function. More often than not she receives an offer of help to get home by some random man in the bar. Usually ‘home’ turns out to be the man’s apartment. Cassie is evidently depressed and deeply scarred by an incident in the past in which Nina, her best friend at Med School, became the object of male attention in the worst of ways. Certainly, she’s depressed and scarred, but she is also angry, and she is not drunk – as the men in her life find out to their cost. At once amusing, thrilling, and deadly serious, this is a fine feature debut from British director Emerald Fennell.

See the full Autumn Programme of The Eclectic Cinema at www.eclecticcinema.com/programme. Future presentations include Alien, Heathers and Calamity Jane.