NZIFF Film Review: "Emily the Criminal" (2022).

From the director of Patrol comes Emily the Criminal. This crime thriller film written and directed by John Patton Ford, in his feature film debut. Emily is saddled with student debt and locked out of the job market due to a minor criminal record. Desperate for income, she takes a shady gig as a "dummy shopper," buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by a handsome and charismatic middleman named Youcef. Faced with a series of dead-end job interviews, Emily soon finds herself seduced by the quick cash and illicit thrills of black-market capitalism, and increasingly interested in her mentor Youcef. Together, they hatch a plan to bring their business to the next level in Los Angeles.

In August 2021, Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Gina Gershon, John Billingsley, and Brandon Sklenar were cast in a crime thriller with Ford as writer and director. Principal photography was shot in just twenty days in "the worst parts of L.A."

The film stars Plaza, Rossi, Echikunwoke, Gershon, Billingsley, and Sklenar. Among a good overall cast, Plaza does well as the exasperating, painfully misguided Emily, bringing out both the humour and the pathos in her futile efforts at connection. It's an emotionally charged, ambitious work that gives Plaza a great deal of room to show this character's unstable range of emotions. It's easily the best work she's ever done. Plaza carries this story through amusing, biting satire that is outrageous enough for wry chuckles, but recognizable and dangerous enough that it's a memorable little film.

Earnest character work by Plaza, the cast, stylistically relevant visuals, and emphatic themes surpasses the script's numerous pitfalls. Relevant, timely, and uncomfortably close to home, the film delivers a serious, stark, brutal, legitimately unsettling cautionary tale about societal failure and criminality. Somehow, the film manages to provide commentary on society without coming across as condescending or archaic. It's a dark film, and one which could go down as 2022's hidden gem. Fittingly dark and emotionally tragic, the film is a biting, off-the-cuff commentary on neediness and the tragic failure of society. I think Ford does a very good job of folding in the social aspects of societal failure alongside Emily's constant struggle with her inner demons. The film definitely has something special here, Ford has created what may be the most relevant film for millennials in 2022. Saved by its relative complexity and acting talents, the film works best as a psychological drama, rather than a critique of society. Thematically, the film delights in the feelings of seeing another person's life and the reasons behind these feelings. Fortunately, typecasting or not, Plaza's skills of both comedy and emotional timing are used quite well in the film a new crime thriller from Ford. The film succeeds just by putting the audience in the middle of that criminal headspace, where everything bad that happens anywhere is ignored by society, and the only way to get out of it is to become the very thing the law hates: a criminal.

Simon says Emily the Criminal receives:

Also, see my NZIFF review for Family Dinner.