Emily the Criminal (2022)

After being constantly rejected due to her past, a young woman is pulled into the criminal underworld, where she sinks deeper and deeper.

Bold, manipulative, and real! Shoulder-mounted cameras and tracking shots always raise the bar high. The story is straightforward from the very beginning. She has skills, but she has a past, and if she ever wants to make money, she has to go rogue. And writer/director John Patton Ford and actress Aubrey Plaza capture that from the opening shot. That mockery disguised in an interview’s clothes, the first job’s minor suspense, the second job’s increased tension, the painful reality of constantly working paycheck to paycheck and still making less than what you have to pay out, and the harsh realisation that your life keeps endlessly amounting to absolute nothing, gradually and painfully unfold like visual poetry. The question becomes, then, what happens when the shit hits the fan after all the choices that one has made, but they didn’t seem much of a choice at the time? Other than Plaza, Theo Rossi does a great job as Youcef (I have been a massive fan of him since Sons of Anarchy), and Gina Gershon lights up the shot she’s in, even if she appears for a split second.

Excellent thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat and will make you doubt the honesty you think you have with yourself. Is Emily turning to crime just because “the system” lets her down, or has she always been the criminal she revealed herself to be? Again, brilliant performances and brilliantly paced, built up and escalated.

Ultimately, what has always been known becomes more apparent: the crime world has one rule: no rules. And the one certain thing is that nothing is.

P.S. Thoroughly thought title!

P.P.S. If you’ve been to such interviews, you know. You know…

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