Emily the Criminal

Emily Benetto is facing a mountain of crippling debt from student loans. She also has a felony conviction, preventing her from getting a regular job. The details are sketchy. We hear it’s from an assault. She mentions she fought a lot with an ex-boyfriend. That ambiguity helps us side with her. Longtime best friend Liz (Megalyn Echikunwoke) pledges to get Emily an interview at a prestigious ad agency, but those promises keep going unfulfilled. Emily falls more easily into a credit card scam where she poses as a “dummy shopper.” We’re introduced to a nefarious Los Angeles underworld that includes a mentor named Youcef Haddad (Theo Rossi).

As the title suggests, Emily the Criminal is a character study — at least initially — about a crook. Not one that is born and raised but recently brought about by her plight. She is a scrappy young woman, defined by her current situation. Emily’s ability to adapt is impressive. As her circumstances become ever more dangerous, she meets them head-on. The situations continue to escalate, but so does she. She refuses to be a victim. Despite her less-than-savory behavior, she isn’t a figure that incurs our hatred. Although she doesn’t incur respect, either.

Aubrey Plaza (Safety Not Guaranteed, Ingrid Goes West) is fascinating as the main protagonist. The individual occupies this gray area where we know her actions are wrong on an intellectual level, but we want her to succeed from an emotional standpoint. To inspire that nuance of feeling is rare. The actress continues to make an impression. When this drama became available on Netflix on December 7, it promptly entered the Top 10. At the same time, she was portraying Harper Spiller, a straitlaced lawyer in a marriage fraught with tension, in the vacation drama The White Lotus on HBO Max.

Emily the Criminal is also a competent thriller. Any discussion of the most promising directorial debuts of 2022 would include John Patton Ford. He has fashioned a compelling tale. In detailing her journey, Emily will meet a cadre of various individuals. It will get intense. Her self-defense weapons expand from pepper spray to a taser to a box cutter. The last of which is considerably more lethal. There is a dubious lack of guns, however. Some of the interactions could have gone much worse. Take a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief before enjoying this view of LA. Aubrey Plaza keeps us enrapt. The actress maintains a blank stare, a face inexplicably conveying both fear and indifference to everything around her. That keeps us a bit detached, too, but we still feel compassion. Ford’s screenplay pleads for understanding. This is an unvarnished portrait of humanity. It may not be inspiring, but it is real.

01-04-23

Emily the Criminal is on Netflix (since December 7). It originally premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 24 and was released to theaters on August 12.