It’s tough out there.
Emily the Criminal, John Patton Ford’s debut feature, knows that a little too well. It wants to make sure you know it too, so its characters narrowly avoid staring straight into the camera as they deliver lines about unpaid internships and independent contractors. I agree that all of this is heinous bullshit, but I don’t like being asked to applaud1, and the writing is less clunky and more effective when it’s communicating its message through narrative, not dialogue.
But that’s about my only problem with the film, which is a taut, well-plotted, unconventional crime story grounded in a strong Aubrey Plaza performance. If you’re as starved for straightforward, no-fuss contemporary crime flicks as I am, and you’ve missed this, it’s well-worth a watch.
Plaza plays Emily Benetto, a young woman barely scraping by in LA. She’s still chipping away at her student loans for art school, and a felony conviction means she doesn’t even have a diploma to show for it all. And actually, all she’s chipping away at is the interest—she’s still a ways away from touching the principal. Her record makes it hard for her to land a decent job, so she’s stuck delivering catering orders: work that has no security and no future.
But in exchange for covering his shift, one of her coworkers connects her with Youcef (Theo Rossi). How would she like to make $200 in an hour?
Youcef runs an ever-changing crew of “dummy shoppers,” sending them out to make large purchases with stolen credit card info. Buy a flatscreen and try not to sweat too much. Tomorrow, maybe we’ll send you out to buy a car. Higher risk, higher reward: now your cut is two grand.
Not only does crime pay, it can also—in one of the film’s most enjoyable and acerbic touches—have more dignity and stability than a “legitimate” job. After one day, Emily’s been promoted! After two, she’s in management training! Yes, Youcef is asking a lot more than most employers, but he’s straightforward about his expectations, and he shows a lot more compassion when things go wrong. He and Emily have an instant crackle of chemistry—Theo Rossi has the smile of a born romantic lead—but he waits for her to invite him out for the night before he makes a move. He’s not Hank Scorpio, but I’d work for him in a heartbeat.
So far, so critique of capitalism. But while Emily the Criminal has a lot to say, in the end, it chooses to be a crime movie first and an issue movie second. Part of that involves taking off its rose-colored glasses. It’s “just” theft, but the potential for violence is always there, and it comes from both the marks who don’t like getting ripped off and the buyers who don’t see why they shouldn’t steal too (and don’t always have many scruples about how they do it). Emily has a coiled intensity and a willingness to get aggressive back, but Plaza still plays her with an unavoidable hint of vulnerability: a small-ish woman sometimes bracketed by much larger men. When she gets slammed around, it’s hard not to feel it. And if it’s still better, or at least more lucrative, than lugging catering trays up multiple flights of stairs, it’s escaping the grind by risking the bullet.
And as the film enters its final act, it gets more despairing and more individualized. The distinctions between the criminal and the corporate blur. Youcef is a sweetheart, and how many sweethearts ever make upper management? The political collapses into the personal, and Emily becomes less a victim of larger forces and more a willing part of them. She always had the raw material to win at this, to be as cutthroat as the people who once exploited her. (When she finally tells Youcef about the nature of her assault conviction, it’s the rare example of backstory packing an actual punch.) She just needed more of an opportunity to rise to the top, and crime provided openings advertising didn’t. She’s an emerging girlboss in a movie that has a genuine problem with bosses, and as she discovers and embraces that corrupt identity, she goes from focal point to true and tragic protagonist. Fuck yeah, that’s her name in the title.
Emily the Criminal is streaming on Netflix.
About the writer
Lauren James
Lauren James is a writer who wears many different hats (and pen names). She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two cats.
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Anthologized
A little slice of American folklore that feels like it's been here all along.
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You make your royal bed, and you lie in it.
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A beautiful slice-of-life film that helped make a career.
Department of
Conversation
What Did We Watch?
Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, episode 1 – I saw a review of this that gushed about how ridiculously entertaining it was despite being predictable and clumsily made, which left me intrigued. It’s basically a riff on Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” but with some Lost-inspired plane crash mystery, which does sound like a fun combo. After one episode though I feel like the generic characters are not really grabbing me, if I’m going to embrace some trashy TV mystery then I want it to have some character at least. But we’ll see, I might try another episode, it’s only a six-part miniseries.
The Practice, “Swearing In” – Rebecca is set to be officially sworn into the bar, but has her first Donnell and Associates brand ethical dilemma when she’s convinced that her client’s alibi was that he was committing a murder. She does her duty to the client, he is found not guilty, and then she and the judge she talked to sit on this knowledge, yay. Surely in real life at some point someone calls the cops? Meanwhile firm rejects advice from other lawyers to settle the lawsuit against them because their reputation, or maybe just their egos, are on the line. And Bobby defends a woman accused of shaking a baby she was sitting for to death, and even he isn’t sure she didn’t do it. This one marks the debut of the great Holland Taylor as Judge Roberta Kittelson, who will win an Emmy this year and appear occasionally till the last season. Guests also include Tony Danza again, John Rubinstein (as a judge apparently named Joseph Papp) and Frasier, “Kathy Baker as the accused babysitter).
Frasier, “The Fight Before Christmas” – In the aftermath of learning of Niles’s love for her, Daphne has no idea what to do, and when it seems Niles and Mel have broken up, she is scared he will pursue her. Against the backdrop of a Christmas party that has no guests and leaves Frasier bereft, misunderstanding continues till Niles is back together with Mel, and till Daphne seems to realize something. The pathos of these two starting to finally come together balances nicely with the farce and with poor Frasier losing his guests to a neighbor he has a grudge with. We don’t actually meet Winston Dodd here, but he will play a big role in a couple of years.
Watched some Futurama with a friend, went for the classics, including “Godfellas” and “Bendin’ In The Wind”. I obviously have a fondness for Bender based on my picks, always fun to see an amoral bastard get passionate about stuff like playing washboard and still screw up. Some very deep cut Beck jokes here like the Becktionary featuring “Whiskeybone”.
One of my favourite things about Futurama is how it occasionally has a knack for putting characters in exactly the most difficult situations for their skillset, and “Godfellas” is one of the ones that puts hedonist sensualist Bender in a philosophy problem. It’s so much fun watching him struggle to act cosmically.
Who can’t relate to wanting a brewery? And maybe finding the brewery results in death and injury?
Justified, Season Three, Episode Four, “The Devil You Know”
Criminality on this show is tied heavily into emotion. It ties law enforcement in with pragmatic goals; Raylan and Rachel have the specific problem of putting a criminal in jail, and they have to take pleasure when they can get it (god knows Raylan does). Devil is convinced to work with Quarles out of resentment (what the bizarre pairing those two were). Criminals who are problem-solvers are rare and tend to be up the top; Boyd is a pragmatic genius, Limehouse is perfectly disciplined (love his man coming in yelling ‘clear’), and Quarles clearly gets his rocks off solving problems.
Ash is undone partly by his indulging Dewey’s hunger; even better, Dickie ends up throwing away money and freedom by tossing Limehouse’s offer back in his face because he feels entitled to more. Dewey, oddly, ends up the most interesting; he’s strangely sympathetic even though he makes one bad decision after another, because his initial impulse is driven by loyalty to Dickie (“What kind of man am I if I don’t stand by my friends?”). As a rule, in reality it’s better to be nice than smart and in fiction it’s also usually a lot more helpful for the same reason – characters like Dickie tend to survive narratives out of sheer popularity.
Raylan on Dickie: “Wants you to know he’s bad, doesn’t quite have it down yet.”
Biggest Laugh: No Art today.
Biggest Non-Art Laugh: “Before you say a damn word, I need to make sure you know how to talk on the telephone.”
Top Ownage: Raylan running Ash down with his car, twice.
NASHVILLE– I’ll concur with what many have said, that this film is a tragic-satirical masterpiece that pulls together an anthology of stories into a portrait of a city, its people, and the fragility of it’s illusions of American dreams. Robert Altman portrays the country music capital as basically a theme park for American jingoism, but it’s also one that has a pulse of public infrastructure which provides liminal contact between all of its characters along a scale defined by wealth and fame. It’s also infused with a sense of longing for contact, either through the illusory pleasure of fame or just temporary intimacy as a break from the entropy of long term relationships. Where this film succeeds where many of Altman’s large canvas ensemble comedies fail is that writer Joan Tewkesbury manages to create story arcs and narrative resolution across the canvas. The ending, which wraps up pretty much all of the tales, still packs a wallop, but sadly not as much as it did in 1975.
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER– Yeah, it’s pretty good–It’s a potent fantasia of modern American racist idiocy challenged with the romance of a fancifully organized, and generally competent resistance (although DeCaprio is clearly, like one of the kingpins in GET CARTER, a good man but out of shape) Anderson’s direction of action sequences manages to find new ways to generate spectacle with the tools afforded to them, and the performances, often enhanced by the tightest close-ups in recent memory, are lively and nuanced. It’s missing something, however, and I think it comes from Perfidia, the story’s real protagonist whose schizoid drives sets the story up, is absent as the consequences of her betrayals and abandonment pile up. The novel provided a pretty good outline for setting the plot in a particular direction through characters seeking some form of resolution or atonement (although it’s narrative dissipates in a series of digressions), and maybe Anderson should have followed up on that.
I know he’s in Sons of Anarchy, but Theo Rossi is genuinely good in the Luke Cage season I watched as the only intelligent criminal character in what was largely a really dumb show.
Luke Cage has a good enough cast that I need to get around to at least a season of it eventually.
It has basically the same problems as the other Marvel shows except with maybe a bit more fun because of the Blaxploitation elements and live performances (which are cool!)
Counterpoint: no, you don’t. Rossi as Shades is indeed the man, but he is surrounded by so much twaddle here.
I remember thinking much the same about this, very effective with strong lead performances but some of the writing is just a little… blunt (Emily… blunt? Haha)
Yeah, I think it’s very good overall and not just a “you can agree with it, so it’s good” kind of movie, but some moments feel like they’re destined to be passed around as “this movie nails it!” clips. It manages to get above that and hit a lot harder than pointed asides can, though.
Lol funnily enough I have seen one “this nailed it” clip out there on Instagram with Emily getting a job interview that turns out to be for an unpaid (I think?), and…well it nailed how ridiculous and rigged the system is against workers, let alone people with criminal records!
Yep, that’s the one that has the killer final line I mentioned in the footnote! It’s a great–and very accurate–scene, even if it’s a little too “let me spell this out for you.” Emily rejecting the attempt at summoning up gender solidarity that doesn’t address her actual and very material needs is a good touch in it, too.
It’s an interview her friend, who works at the same agency, got for her, and I do kind of wish we’d gotten to hear from the friend afterwards, since she knew how bad Emily’s financial position was. Did she not know these jobs all started off as unpaid internships? Did she just vaguely think Emily would make it work somehow? (Ironically, of course, at this point Emily literally could, since she has about $15k from the theft. You could do an entirely different movie where she got into the theft to support the unpaid internship that was the only way to get to the job of her dreams.)
Excellent write-up. I liked this a lot, the movie plays coy with the backstory and leads the viewer to think it is unfair but no! This is entirely on Emily! Which does not justify her treatment but is a nice bit of realism and as you note, points to her larger character. This is a movie about risk/reward and how the straight world offers no reward and by doing so creates risk; Emily takes the long way around but realizes that philosophy of farming risk out and not sharing it is the safe bet. Emily the Franchiser, Emily the Jordan Belfort.
Emily the Franchiser is spot-on. Also, there’s some great Theo Rossi acting in that eventual backstory reveal, as he plays this guy who’s been handed a bunch of red flags way too late to make any difference: he can’t back out now.
Year of the Month update!
Here’s a primer on some of the movies, albums, books and TV we’ll be covering for 1973 in October!
TBD: Patrick Mio Llaguno – The Long Goodbye
Oct. 14th: Bridgett Taylor: Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road
Oct. 15th: Lauren James: Working
Oct. 16th: John Bruni: Shotgun Willie/Sweet Revenge
Oct. 22nd: Lauren James: The Wicker Man
Oct. 20th: Sam Scott: Janos Vitek
Oct. 29th: Lauren James: Don’t Look Now
And this November, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al from 2018!
Nov. 10th: Bridgett Taylor: Aquaman
Nov. 24th: Sam Scott: Ice Cream Man