Name: Emily the Criminal
Genre: Drama
Duration: 97 min
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, John Billingsley, Bernardo Badillo

The title character in Emily the Criminal gets drawn into a life of crime when it seems like she has no other option, but what makes the movie intriguing is that Emily (Aubrey Plaza) doesn't just act out of desperation. Like Breaking Bad's Walter White, Emily fairly quickly discovers that she's good at being a criminal and that she enjoys it. Writer-director John Patton Ford makes some pointed commentary about modern American capitalism, but Emily the Criminal isn't a message movie. It's a suspenseful, engrossing thriller about a woman finding her purpose in life, however dark and messed up that purpose may be.

Emily is introduced storming out of a job interview after a potential employer brings up her past felony assault conviction, which she pointedly refuses to explain. That mark on her record is just one obstacle keeping Emily from getting ahead in life. She's saddled with massive student debt, and the best job she can land is as a gig worker delivering food. Her childhood friend Liz (Megalyn Echikunwoke) gushes over her job at a fancy ad agency, making seemingly empty promises about getting Emily an interview to work with her. Emily, who studied art in school and used to love painting, can barely even muster enthusiasm for sketching anymore.

Her life changes when one of her food delivery co-workers refers her to a job that he tells her pays $200 for an hour's work. She's part of a group of people hired to purchase high-end TVs with stolen credit card numbers, and the brief rush of getting away with an illegal act clearly sparks something in Emily. She's also drawn to Youcef (Theo Rossi), a Lebanese immigrant who runs this particular fraud operation. When he offers her $2,000 for another gig, she barely hesitates before agreeing, even though this one could be much more dangerous.

That gig, using fraudulent funds to buy a fancy car rather than a TV, forces Emily into a car chase and leaves her with a bloody nose from being punched in the face, but it also gives her a taste of what Youcef's operation can accomplish. Plaza's off-kilter personality perfectly captures Emily's mix of fear and eagerness. Once she learns that crime really does pay, her descent into the underworld is all but guaranteed. Compared to committing fraud, delivering food and even working in an upscale office like Liz's seem like pointless wastes of time. As Patton deftly cross-cuts between Emily's day job and her lucrative side hustle selling stolen goods, it's obvious where her passion lies.

Aubrey Plaza and Theo Rossi in Emily the Criminal

Unlike Walter White, though, Emily doesn't become an underworld kingpin, and Patton keeps Emily the Criminal mostly grounded and low-key. Even when the stakes are raised and the story becomes more violent, it's not because Emily is facing off against some major crime boss. The conflicts between small-time criminals are plenty dangerous on their own, and it only takes one small misstep for Emily to place herself in harm's way. Emily the Criminal isn't a movie about a naïve person getting in over her head, though. Every time Emily encounters a setback, she immediately pushes against it, finding a way to thwart the people who are opposing her with little hesitation.

Plaza has been exploring dark, dramatic roles in indie films like Ingrid Goes West and Black Bear, and Emily the Criminal is her most serious work to date. Emily is more ruthless than she first appears, but she's not a villain, and Plaza makes her sympathetic and likable even as she's committing terrible acts. There's still a certain aloofness to her acting, but that works well for a character who is able to remove herself emotionally from whatever violence she needs to commit in order to get what she wants. Emily shows a softer side of herself to Youcef eventually, but that cold self-interest always remains just below the surface. It's like Emily's New Jersey accent, which tends to get thicker the more agitated she becomes.

Emily the Criminal has a few scenes that lay out the no-win situation for many people in Emily's financial position, from the student loan payments that are applied entirely toward interest and never make a dent in the overall amount owed to the cynical boss joking about freelancer Emily calling her union rep if she's unhappy that he cut her hours. Even the credit card fraud operation itself is a product of unrestrained capitalism, and it's clear that the system has pushed people like Emily and Youcef to a breaking point. It's also allowed people like Emily to use their skills to manipulate it to their advantage, and ultimately Emily is someone who thrives in this dystopian environment. When she figures out that true purpose, Emily the Criminal is both exhilarating and terrifying.