This gripping and nerve-twisting crime thriller from the writer-director John Patton Ford is packed with nervous energy and spiralling misfortune, moving at a relentless pace all the while taking potshots at the gig economy, student debt and the justice system.
Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is struggling under the pressure of unmanageable debt repayments. She works casually for a catering company, delivering and setting up food for corporate events and offices. She has an assault charge in her history, which continually prevents her from securing any permanent employment.
A college friend offers to get Emily an interview at her workplace but the wheels move slowly and Emily needs money. When the catering job cuts her shifts, she accepts an offer from her co-worker to make some fast cash as a “dummy shopper”: a person tasked with purchasing expensive items using cloned credit cards.
Emily quickly discovers she has an aptitude for her new line of work. When she becomes involved with the man in charge of the operation, Youcef (Theo Rossi), he agrees to help Emily clone her own cards in exchange for a cut of her profits. As her options become increasingly limited, she grows more reliant on the illegal enterprise and finds herself getting in deeper and deeper.
If nothing else, making us root for a credit card scammer is quite an accomplishment; rest assured, I do not hold the same esteem for the person who charged $200 worth of golfing supplies to my account several years ago. It is our empathy for Emily that makes Emily the Criminal so involving. There’s no focal point against which she can rage: systems, processes and bureaucracy collectively enforce punitive justice instead of any kind of redemption. The film pulls no punches in its depiction of the rise of casual, gig-economy, “zero-hours” and even unpaid work; you can only conclude that modern employment is well and truly broken.
All of the authority figures brim with self-righteousness, being more interested in scolding Emily than trying to understand her. Despite her best efforts, the black mark on her record ensures there are no second chances: the only doors left open to her lead to further illicit activity. But Emily mostly makes reasonable choices. There’s no one bad decision that tips the scales; if we found ourselves in the same situation, many of us might well do the same. She is determined to crawl from under the boot of bad employers and student loan companies by any means necessary.
Plaza’s cracking performance as Emily makes her transition into a world of intimidation and potential violence totally believable. Emily is tough and unafraid to speak her mind or let things slide. If you’ve ever had a bad job interview, there are a couple of vicariously enjoyable sequences where she lets interviewers know precisely what she thinks of them.
Rossi is terrific as Youcef, bringing nuance and an amiable quality to a character who is also seeking legitimacy – in the meantime relying on raw ambition and an uneasy business partnership to get him there.
It feels a little incorrect to throw around terms like “enjoyment” when speaking about a film that makes your teeth grind to the extent Emily the Criminal does. But if you dig the hypertension vibes of the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time or Uncut Gems, then you’ll appreciate the peaks and troughs of Emily the Criminal’s defibrillating energy. It’s simultaneously a crime thriller, a raised fist for labour solidarity, a cardiovascular nightmare – and comfortably the best movie I’ve seen all year.
