Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 33 minutes
Director: John Patton Ford
Quick Impressions:
I was surprised to enjoy the love story in this movie so much. I chose to watch Emily the Criminal only because I wasn’t in the mood to see Idris Elba fight a lion. (On paper, that looks insane. Who wouldn’t want to see Idris Elba fight a lion? The trailer for Beast didn’t captivate me, though. Had the film been titled Idris Elba Fights a Lion, I probably would have gone, for the same reason that I couldn’t resist Helen Mirren in the Haunted House.) (Of course, that movie is actually called Winchester. I’m the only one who calls it Helen Mirren in the Haunted House, so maybe that’s not an apt comparison.)
Emily the Criminal looked thoughtful, like it wanted to offer a well-crafted critique of our society. And it does. I was surprised that the movie had so much heart, though. I expected to engage with this cerebrally, but I found the romance genuinely appealing. It’s a compelling love story.
Youcef’s approach is probably what appeals to me so much. “Listen! Let me just be upfront with you. I’m a criminal.” (Probably most people would wisely think, “Oh no! A criminal! I should avoid romantic entanglement with this person.” Instead, I’m like, “Well, you seem honest. Clearly your intentions are honorable.”)
I remember being surprised by the captivating romance in Hustle and Flow, too. (None of the other movies that year had managed to convince me that the “lovers” were the slightest bit in love.) Maybe I just like criminals. (I was obsessed with Oliver! as a young child, though I’ve got to say, the romance in that is not great.) It also probably doesn’t hurt that my daughter and I have recently watched Rosemary’s Baby and Paranormal Activity, and we’re reading the end of the fourth Dune book. I feel like, “Hey, you know who’s a really appealing romantic lead? This credit card scammer!”
It’s possible that I consider Youcef such a catch because he’s so non-threatening to the protagonist. Almost all the other characters make her life harder (including Emily herself).
That’s another surprising aspect of this movie. I discovered quickly that I really liked watching Emily’s adventures. Most of the credit for this surely goes to Aubrey Plaza. Because of her charisma, I got invested in the character and wanted her to succeed, which is odd because I also kept wondering if she was a psychopath.
(“Why a psychopath?” my husband wondered.
“Because of her inability to control her impulsive violence,” I answered.
Emily is her own worst enemy in a lot of ways, yet she has the perfect skillset for a life of crime. (Doesn’t that sound a bit like a psychopath?) Then again, how should she react when prospective employers lie to her, try to take advantage of her, or ask her to work for free?
“Psychopath” is kind of a slippery way to categorize someone, anyway, but asking, “Do you think Emily has anti-social personality disorder?” feels too presumptuous, like I’m attempting to reclining-theater-chair diagnose a real person. Using the term “psychopath” makes me feel like I’m analyzing pop fiction in a totally normal way.)
The Good:
Emily the Criminal is a well written, compellingly acted film. For some reason, it’s fun to watch. (That’s what I didn’t expect. Emily’s circumstances are so difficult, yet my eyes were glued to the screen. The movie also gives us plenty to think about. It highlights the problem of how unethically workers are treated in this country and underscores our somewhat baffling value judgments about which workers deserve money.
The movie also raises the question, “Are criminals really so bad?” No matter what you call it, Emily has all the characteristics to flourish in a life of crime. She developed these characteristics by attempting to flourish in legitimate society. The implication seems to be that our society is so broken that attempting to live by its warped rules causes people to become criminals because that’s the only way to succeed.
Emily’s critique of the status quo (that we hear in her rants and see in her frustrated gazes) raises some valid points. Why should people be asked to carry immense amounts of food up endless stairs to be rewarded at the top with contempt? Why should it be an honor to take an unpaid internship that will likely end in months of demoralizing labor until termination? Why is it right for a prospective employer to test an applicant’s honesty by lying to her?
Then again, many of Emily’s struggles are her own fault. She may be a talented artist, but she also has impulse control issues and a violent temper. She’s not exactly an innocent victim of circumstance eking out a tragic existence. She can’t get a good job because she has a quick, violent temper. The felony conviction on her record does reflect her character. But that’s still no reason she should work without compensation. (Of course, she has problems at her food delivery job because she abruptly leaves work during a shift with no explanation. Granted that could have been because she had a legitimate medical emergency or death in the family, but…it wasn’t.)
The film also takes a provocative look at boundaries. Throughout the film, Emily makes a point of declaring and enforcing her boundaries. She stands up for herself. She won’t take less money than she’s been offered. She won’t let people lie to her. She won’t work for free. She won’t let people intimidate her. When she stands up for herself this way in the legitimate world, it makes “honest” people dislike and dismiss her. But when she behaves this way in the criminal world, it makes other criminals respect and value her. Occasionally her assertiveness backfires, but then she just ups the violence and wins. She has the right psychological makeup for crime.
One interesting thing about Emily is that her heart sometimes gets in the way of her usual principles. She won’t work for nothing, but she’ll watch her friend’s dog for nothing. She won’t work a shift if she has something better to do, but she’ll take someone else’s shift if it really means a lot to his child. At one point, she’s supposed to be crating the dog she’s babysitting at night. The dog barks so much that she lets it out of the crate and cuddles it in bed. (Maybe she respects the dog for persisting in barking. Maybe she resents her friend for leaving such explicit, inconvenient instructions. Maybe she’s just kind of lazy and reverts to convenience when she’s not watched. But it’s also possible that when she feels an emotional connection, she lets herself be taken advantage of. It’s not that she doesn’t recognize this, it’s that she prioritizes what her heart tells her–unless it becomes impossible.)
Aubrey Plaza is immensely compelling as Emily. She manages to make the character far more sympathetic than she should be. As played by Plaza, Emily is a hard worker and an excellent criminal. Her co-star Theo Rossi has so much charisma that I kept wondering why he seems so familiar. (I never did figure it out. As far as I know, I haven’t seen him in anything else.) Youcef is a terrible criminal, absolutely abysmal, but Rossi makes him probably the most likeable character in the entire movie. When Emily’s injured and attacks him, he responds by putting ice on her nose. Behavior like that is not how you get ahead in the criminal underworld. Somewhat ironically, Youcef would probably succeed in legitimate business if any opportunities at all were afforded him. He has a much more pleasant, tractable personality than Emily. He sets goals. He works hard. He gets along with people. Considering what he does, he treats the people who work for him surprisingly well.
Best Scene:
My favorite moment in the entire movie is when Emily shows up to her horrible friend Liz’s party, dog in tow. Liz asks how everything went with the dog. (Did he stay in his crate? Was he any trouble?) Emily’s reply made me start to imagine how funny this movie could be as a comedy. There really is something wildly hilarious about the massive disparity between the nonchalance of her reply and the actual way her time babysitting that dog went. (I can imagine a hilarious stage play or wacky family movie presenting this in a tonally different way. There’s still dramatic irony here. The audience knows exactly what happened while she was watching that dog. But if the story were told in a different way, the enormous amount Liz doesn’t know would be so funny. There’s even a dark humor, as is.)
Liz (Megalyn Echikunwoke) is one of the most interesting characters in the movie. Why is she even friends with Emily? I find her impossible to read. To me it seems very bizarre that she wants to continue hanging around with Emily when they obviously have nothing in common. She invites a huge number of people to a party at her apartment, but Emily is the only person she can find to watch her dog? Obviously Liz could afford to pay someone to watch her dog. At times I thought Liz felt irrationally guilty she couldn’t do more to help Emily, but then she sets her up to fail, so I’m not sure what to make of that. It is a sad life when a criminal using you as a decoy in a credit card scam is kinder to you and better company than the friend you grew up with. An uncharitable reading of Liz is that she’s simply a self-serving Narcissist who is just using Emily. But that doesn’t make sense either. If that’s the case, why does Liz look so tortured in every scene? I think it’s more likely that she keeps introducing Emily to people to give her networking opportunities, but what can you say to successful professionals when you’re a criminal?
Listening to the initial conversation between Liz and Emily at the bar, I thought, “Ah yes. Talking about your experiences when you’re doing well is called sharing and talking about your experiences when you’re not doing well is called oversharing.” It’s easy to see why Emily is so taciturn in the scene when she brings the dog to the party since her initial efforts to share what’s going on in her life with Liz set up a movieful of awkwardness between the two. What can Emily possibly say?
Best Scene Visually:
What I love is the warm, relaxed moment between Emily, Youcef, and his mother (Sheila Korsi), and how tense that same gathering becomes a moment later. Both the initial warmth and the subsequent tension is so visible, seen in the faces and bodies of the actors.
Best Action Sequence:
The intensity of the action sequences in this film surprised me. On many occasions, a scene would end, and I’d hear my husband loudly exhale in relief. Especially intense is the scene when two people come to pick up some merchandise when Emily has already left her usual selling location.
The Negatives:
There’s a story in Wayside School is Falling Down about a boy named Myron who learns you can either be free or safe. I found that concept fascinating when I first read the book in sixth grade. Looked at one way, the message of this movie seems to be, “If society’s not working out for you, and you’re willing to murder people, just opt out of the social contract and do whatever you want.” If you don’t have a problem with that, then…great. I guess I feel morally uncomfortable with the fact that this movie left me wanting to become a criminal. What’s funny is that this film could be a bigger budget, glitzier blockbuster, and nothing in the plot would have to change. Emily behaves exactly the way action stars behave in movies. I was surprised that this movie has such a Hollywood ending. I was expecting something bleak and realistic.
Emily’s obsession with boundaries and making people respect her by using any means necessary (even violent escalation) made me wonder the whole movie about what had happened to her in the past. That felony on her record—I was sure it was going to be about striking back at a stalker, a rapist, an abusive partner. She seems like a person with abuse and trauma in her past. (Is that why Liz doesn’t want her to move in with her stepfather? I mean, if not, what is so bad about moving back to New Jersey? Didn’t they both grow up in New Jersey? Is it just that Liz doesn’t want to pay for a dogsitter?) I wish we got a clearer answer here. Near the end of the film, Emily does tell us what she learned from that past situation. But she didn’t need to tell us that explicitly. She’s been showing us that she learned that the entire movie. I wish we could learn what provoked her to commit the crime that blots her record.
I do think there’s some kind of shame/trauma/abuse there because otherwise why does she lie to the person interviewing her in the first scene by volunteering a worse, less sympathetic crime than the one she actually committed? (If a woman says, “I responded with violence to someone who was hurting me,” that doesn’t make her sound like a horrible criminal. Getting a DUI and acting all casual like it’s no big deal seems worse.) I want to know what was done to her that made her lash out in the way that she did. (Her line late in the film, “This is your fault for being here,” really suggests that something intensely traumatic happened to her to kick this all off.) A moment when she was terribly hurt lurking back there in her past makes sense. Perhaps she’s being pragmatic when storming out of her first interview. Why should she open up about something deeply traumatic to someone now unlikely to give her the job anyway? I wish we knew what happened.
I also think it’s problematic (on the level of narrative) that Emily just obtains the means to carry out these crimes from Youcef. There are some big gaps in her knowledge of how to be a criminal. I mean, the method seems to be, “1. Go down to Criminal Resources. 2. Get the information and materials that you need. 3. Be in charge of a crime ring.” You have to gain access to those credit card numbers somehow. You also need the machine that makes the cards.
Maybe the filmmakers don’t want to show the audience too much. I’m reading Michael Pollan’s This is Your Mind on Plants right now, and he talks about how the government tried to crack down on the opium trade without letting anyone know that opium poppies could even be grown in the United States. Maybe telling people exactly how to obtain these resources would encourage the public to commit crimes. But I feel like something about the ending of this movie doesn’t quite add up.
I also find it somewhat unrealistic that in the United States, nobody involved in crime has a gun. I guess this is a great advertisement for gun control. Look at all the damage she does with tasers and box cutters! Who needs a gun! Look what an effective criminal you can be without one!
My husband found the early parts of the movie slow, but I didn’t. I thought the story was fairly engrossing from the start. By the end, he was hooked, too.
Overall:
Aubrey Plaza gives an immensely compelling performance in Emily the Criminal, an engrossing, intense story that reminds us that yes, crime does pay even though coveted internships don’t. This film exceeded my expectations and made me curious about the career of Theo Rossi.