‘Emily the Criminal’: Film Review | Sundance 2022

A cool, confident debut whose steady build mirrors the increasing stakes faced by its namesake, John Patton Ford’s Emily the Criminal is a nail-biter that makes the most of the tough side Aubrey Plaza has shown in even her most comic performances.

Though always a presence to contend with, Plaza commands the screen here, playing a character many will relate to — until the point at which they realize they’re nowhere near this bold. Costar Theo Rossi makes a strong showing as well, bringing a knowing edge to a film that rides the line between working-class realism and pure genre thrills.

Plaza’s Emily is eking out a living under hard conditions that are no less relatable for being largely self-inflicted. She owes $70,000 for an education she never completed, and her prospects for a decent-paying job are crippled by a felony assault conviction. The Jersey native is no creampuff, and pushes back at the first sign she’s being taken advantage of. It’s kind of a marvel she’s employed at all, even in a crummy “independent contractor” delivery job. It’s also a wonder she can still be friends with Liz (Megalyn Echikunwoke), the art-school pal whose advertising job takes her to glamorous places like Portugal.

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Repaying a kindness, a coworker offers to hook her up: Text this number, he says, and you can make $200 in an hour. Soon she’s part of a credit card-fraud ring, freelancing under the guidance of a compassionate-seeming man named Youcef (Rossi). Though he gives out info on a need-to-know basis and there are several tough-looking characters in his shady office/warehouse, he’s always straight about each job’s risks.

Ford shows how threatening an ordinary electronics store can feel when you’re walking to the cashier with a $2,000 flatscreen and credit card that may be declined or worse. And that’s the easy part — the audition for an enterprise where dollar amounts, and physical dangers, ramp up quickly. Putting on a placid face doesn’t come easily to Emily, and Plaza burbles through countless micro-expressions as her character reevaluates interactions on the fly. How do you make yourself look trustworthy to people you suspect are criminals themselves? And when both parties know a deal’s illicit, how do you keep from getting burned or beaten? Emily has some truly hairy encounters, and Plaza doesn’t try to make her look fearless. But her instinct to stand up for herself always kicks in, and the results are gripping.

Whether thanks to an urge to get ahead or a natural attraction, she starts sleeping with Youcef, who earns her uneasy trust and ours. If only he were the sole person running this operation. But then, nice guys and nice girls don’t build crime rings.

The film’s momentum is clearly pushing Emily in one direction, but the straight world beckons. There, the exploitative relationships are legal; but the people may be even less invested in her well-being than the crooks are. Gina Gershon cameos as a self-satisfied exec who, to say the least, is not offering to pay $200 for Emily’s first hour of work and more from there. Has the youngster really been swallowing her pride and feigning refinement in pursuit of an unpaid internship? Too bad she doesn’t know how to add her would-be boss’ credit card number to her list of victims-to-be.

And too bad the people whose credit she is wrecking are likely just as hard up as she is. Criminal can’t afford to think about that side of the equation. Here, what you’ve stolen belongs to you, and anybody who comes for it deserves whatever you can do to them. Emily can do a lot.