"Emily the Criminal" a tough, tightly wound crime-thriller armed with a riveting Aubrey Plaza

Emily the Criminal (2022)

Aubrey Plaza exchanges her brilliantly awkward, snarky, and/or weird comic roles for unblinking surliness and determination in “Emily the Criminal.” Neither a criminal nor a woman, writer-director John Patton Ford makes his auspicious feature debut with a lean script rooted in personal experience. Unlike his protagonist in desperate financial straits, he ended up on the right track, pursuing filmmaking rather than fraud. This raw, unflinching crime drama-thriller isn’t a coming-out for Plaza to show an untapped range (see "Ingrid Goes West" and "Black Bear"), but she does give her most electric and ferocious performance to date.

With $70K in student debt and a misdemeanor DUI on her permanent record, Emily (Plaza) needs another job, and she’s running out of options. Her background check of aggravated assault just always puts the kibosh on moving forward in the interview process, and she has a short fuse. Working as a catering delivery driver in L.A., Emily takes a shift for co-worker Javier (Bernardo Badillo), who returns the favor by giving her a number for a fast-cash job. When the contact has her meet at a location, it turns out to be a gig that pays $200 in an hour as a “dummy shopper” in a credit card fraud operation. The head of the operation is Youcef, played by Theo Rossi with a mixture of sexy danger, charisma, and gentle, thawed-out warmth. As her first job in buying one flatscreen goes off without a hitch, Emily gets a taste for this thrilling, on-the-edge lifestyle and becomes much bolder in the scams she pulls off. Youcef not only becomes Emily’s mentor but maybe even a romantic partner, until his cousin and business partner, Khalil (Jonathan Avigdori), begins to notice that Emily’s recklessness could put the business at risk.

Fiercely critical of the capitalist society we live in, “Emily the Criminal” never hammers the viewer over the head with its ideas when the characters and story speak for themselves. In the film’s opening during a job interview, Emily presents herself as a bristly individual with a lot of pride and major volatility simmering just barely beneath the cool surface. Once the employer baits her into discussing the particulars of her background check, that won’t fly with her as Emily goes into defensive mode. As she later piles one illegal decision upon another illegal decision that puts her in danger, we still understand Emily’s desperation that goes beyond the point of no return. Though Emily’s real passions and talents are sketching and painting, the movie isn’t called “Emily the Artist.” She fully commits to what she needs to do (or rather what she thinks she needs to do) in order to survive. The counterpoint to Emily is Liz (Megalyn Echikunwoke), her closest friend from high school and art school. When they catch up for drinks, Liz would rather put in a good word for Emily at her graphics design job than see Emily go back to New Jersey to live with her stepdad and save money. Where this thread goes leads to an uncomfortable interview with Gina Gershon, making the most of one juicy scene as the CEO of an ad agency who expects Emily to start as an unpaid intern. 

Without striking a false note for manufactured drama, the film remains lived-in and enthralling with John Patton Ford’s taut direction and concise writing. The stakes do get a lift but never in overly far-fetched ways, including an unbearably tense-turned-cathartic scene where Emily makes the mistake of selling too close to home to a loser couple. Even when Emily gets stuck watching Liz’s dog, one expects the worst, until Ford flips the script by paying off an earlier setup with a taser Youcef gives Emily. Despite maybe a too-neat conclusion that still earns the character’s freedom, “Emily the Criminal” is a tough, tightly wound crime-thriller and a fascinating character study with a riveting lead performance. 

Grade: B +

Vertical and Roadside Attractions are releasing “Emily the Criminal” (97 min.) in theaters on August 12, 2022.