Emily the Criminal
Directed by John Patton Ford
- crime
- drama
- thriller
The story
Desperate for income, Emily takes a shady gig buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by a charismatic middleman named Youcef. Seduced by the quick cash and illicit thrills, they hatch a plan to take their business to the next level.
What it’s like
Cold fluorescent offices, dim apartment kitchens lit by a single lamp, and the sun-bleached glare of Los Angeles strip malls give this film a hard-edged, realistic texture, shot with handheld intimacy that keeps the camera close to Aubrey Plaza's face as she calculates every move. The palette runs to beige, grey and washed-out daylight, broken by the warm amber of nighttime parking lots and the flat hum of a city that never quite slows down. Scoring is sparse and tense, with the quiet of empty rooms and the rattle of cars doing much of the work. Its pace is steady and grounded, building a slow pressure rather than thrills, and its emotional register is anxious and wry: a debt-crushed woman, unsure how to fix her life, slowly letting ambition curdle into something she can't control. Violence is brief and sharp, with a few tense confrontations and one sudden, startling act; there is no gore, but the menace lands hard when it arrives. For people who want a sharp, character-driven crime drama about money pressure, ethical slippage, and the lure of easy results, rather than a cozy or gentle watch.
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