Emily the Criminal (2022)

[aghst]

Quote

Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is saddled with student debt and locked out of the job market due to a minor criminal record. Desperate for income, she takes a shady gig as a "dummy shopper," buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by a handsome and charismatic middleman named Youcef (Theo Rossi). Faced with a series of dead-end job interviews, Emily soon finds herself seduced by the quick cash and illicit thrills of black-market capitalism, and increasingly interested in her mentor Youcef. Together, they hatch a plan to bring their business to the next level in Los Angeles.

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/emily_the_criminal

 

Anyone watch this?  I haven't yet but after Aubrey got good reception for her White Lotus role, surprised this one didn't get more attention.

I don't recognize the writer-director.  This may be a first feature.

Guess it's somewhat social satire of the times.

 

[Browncoat]

I did, but it's been a while.  I remember it was quite good.

[cpcathy]

I did, really enjoyed it. Those locations were eerily familiar to me. The scene where she has to pick up the car was a nail biter.

[StatisticalOutlier]

I saw it in a theater when it came out last summer.  There was almost no information on it so I had to go in kind of blind, and I'm glad I did.  Aubrey Plaza's really good, and I agree that the scene where she picks up the car is tense.

[Bastet]

Yeah, it's been a while, so I don't remember a lot of details, but I was incredibly impressed with Aubrey Plaza's performance (I'd never seen her in anything before).  She had the perfect facial expression whenever Emily was around her successful friends, broadcasting her emotions without ever expressing them verbally. 

I love when she tells off Gina Gershon's character for calling a job an internship so she doesn't have to pay people for their work.

It was a good script, setting up her circumstances and making believable her getting more and more involved in the scams. 

[DoctorAtomic]

You want to tell me what to do? Fucking pay me.

What was the capper on that scene, was not only was it an unpaid internship, but there wasn't any guarantee of employment after that either. 

[aghst]

Watched it, it's different from her Parks and Recreation or White Lotus roles.

It's more dramatic, not comic at all, no satire.  

Emily is in a bleak, desperate situation.  But she has a criminal tendency.  Once presented with the opportunity, she was going to go for it.

That aggravated assault in her past made her walk out of the job interview and later she says her only mistake was not hurting her ex boyfriend enough that he still called the cops.

It's one thing to defend herself when the guy was choking her but she turned it into threatening him.  Same thing with the robbery at her apartment, she grabbed the stun gun and chased after them, threatening the girl.

Wonder why she chose to do this role.  Certainly plays against type.

 

[DoctorAtomic]

I think that's why. It's nothing like any fan would expect. It's shrewd move on her part imo. She's also a producer.

[EtheltoTillie]

I like Aubrey Plaza a lot, but I was very unsettled by this movie, and I stopped watching it in the middle.  That doesn't mean I'm giving it a "bad" review.  It's a "good" movie in the sense that it is well made and written and has artistic value.