Movies: Emily the Criminal

It was cold and rainy over the holiday break...the perfect excuse for my sister and me to catch up with some movies we had missed over the past few months.  One of them was Emily the Criminal, a crime drama written and directed by John Patton Ford:

The film follows Emily, a down-and-out art school dropout wrestling with student loan debt. When she gets the chance to make some easy money doing something illegal, Emily sinks deeper and deeper into an underworld of crooks, thieves, and lowlifes. There's a lot of on-the-nose social commentary (Emily's legal ways out of her debt - a delivery job and an unpaid internship - are cartoonishly predatory) that reminded me of other economics-oriented crime thrillers like Hell or High Water.

As far as I can tell, this is Aubrey Plaza's first non-comedic role, and she does a great job with the material. Her portrayal of the titular character is all pressure and frayed nerves, and when things finally reach a boiling point, Plaza makes Emily's angry eruptions believable and relatable, if not altogether sympathetic. Playing the yin to Plaza's yang is Theo Rossi, who demonstrates impressive emotional range (his character goes from cocksure to cowering). Their performances are enough to overcome simple plotting and a one-note story.

Rating: 8/10