Emily the Criminal
Emily the Criminal is now up for sale on Amazon for just 9.99. And so last night I ponied up the digital sawbuck and watched Aubrey Plaza let it rip.
So let’s see what I can say without spoilers. Aubrey Plaza is the center of the movie in her eponymous role. This is a character study, as well as an indictment of modern American society. Having just recently read Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado, I was primed and ready for the indictment of the treatment of those who fall into the labor class despite a college education. There is a scene where Emily eviscerates the concept of internships and I wanted to stand up and cheer.
Okay now the spoiler section, so if you don’t want spoilers I completely understand and you can go now.
Can I go on?
Great. The above is actually a paraphrase of the speech both given to Emily and given by her later on as she prepares others for an entry into crime.
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Her first job is buying something with a fake credit card for which she receives 200 dollars for about an hour of her time. She wants more. Her next job is 2k but with a higher level of danger. This time it ends up with a physical altercation with her mark. Her mentor and love interest Yusef ends up holding ice to her nose.
Then Yusef teaches her how to do what he does. But he gives her warnings like never hit the same store twice in a week and never meet customers in her home. She ignores both rules and nearly has her throat cut as punishment for breaking the latter rule.
The breaking of the first rule is used as a pretext for Yusef’s partner to cut him loose despite familial ties. It becomes clear that Yusef is less streetwise and substantially softer than Emily. She warns him that he was always going to be ripped off by his partner because he let himself be taken advantage of.
The two of them go against the substantially more savvy and ruthless partner. Yusef would have given up but Emily won’t let him. It is an open question whether she wishes otherwise at the end of the movie.
This is a character study like I said. Emily had her own earlier brushes with the law and maybe that is what prevented her from completing college and making it into the ranks of the privileged like her friend Liz. Or maybe it is very few graduates of art college that make it into the upper echelons of society without being born into a trust fund.
But there is something in Emily that is hard as steel. And this comes out as she butts up against tougher and tougher people in the life of crime and she refuses at each step to back down, refuses to be a victim in a very admirable sense. Up until that decision costs her because sometimes being tough and stubborn isn’t enough.
One of the best movies I’ve seen in 2022 and maybe in the past decade. It is material worthy of the actress.
