That movie might be fun, but Emily the Criminal <\/em>is not that film at all. It\u2019s a straight-up crime thriller, closer to Thief<\/em> than Big Deal on Madonna Street<\/em>, done with no winks, and Plaza plays it right down the middle. What seems at first like novelty casting ultimately, and delightfully, reveals itself as a good actor trying something new, recalibrating her gifts, taking on a genre movie without condescending to it. She\u2019s very, very good, a little bit dangerous and a little bit desperate (and that\u2019s the right mix for this story), hard-bitten, believably tough, and sexy as hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet what\u2019s ingenious about her casting is that, even when she\u2019s played prickly characters, she\u2019s a fundamentally likable presence \u2013 and that\u2019s a necessity when we\u2019re following someone into the criminal underworld. We\u2019re with her right from the top, from the opening sequence, a humiliating job interview in which a prospective employer tricks her into lying about her background. And she\u2019s inclined to do so; she\u2019s got $70,000 in student loan debt, and spends her days fielding calls from creditors while humping it out as a gig worker for a catering service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One day, one of Emily\u2019s co-workers does her a solid, giving her a number to text for some quick, easy money. The job is as a \u201cdummy shopper,\u201d using credit cards created from stolen information to purchase expensive merchandise, and when she arrives for what amounts to an orientation, she\u2019s suspicious \u2013 this is not, to put it delicately, her typical crowd. \u201cIn the next hour you will make $200,\u201d announces Youcef (Theo Rossi), who appears to run the show, \u201cBut you\u2019ll have to do something illegal.\u201d She\u2019s handed a forged credit card and driver\u2019s license, sent into a big box store to buy a pricey TV. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019re already immersed in one of the best qualities of crime fiction: laying out how this stuff works. Once we understand the formalities and logistics, we become accomplices to Emily\u2019s crimes, and it speaks to both the empathy of Plaza\u2019s performance and the skill of writer\/director John Patton Ford that they can build suspense into a few simple but elegant shots of our protagonist standing at a checkout, waiting for the credit card to clear. That job accomplished, she\u2019s offered another one the next day, greater risk for more money. Conveniently enough, she has a pretty terrible day at her \u201creal\u201d job, and with that, we\u2019re off and running. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Much of what follows is genuinely harrowing, and Plaza provides a rooting interest; even when she\u2019s breaking the law, we want her to get over, which is incalculably important to the success of a film like this. She proves adept at thinking her way out of tough spots, but there are moments of real, scary, physical danger, and in those scenes, Plaza\u2019s vulnerability matters (and Ford is an adroit enough director to know when to keep his camera on her, especially after her necessary bravado can dissipate).<\/p>\n\n\n\n But she finds, perhaps to her surprise, that she\u2019s not only good at this work \u2013 she enjoys it. Early on, after showing her the ropes, Youcef tells her to keep anything she makes under $5K; she asks, \u201cOk, what if I make more?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you make more?\u201d he responds, slightly but playfully incredulous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYeah,\u201d she replies, and compliments it with a little smile, because it\u2019s fun to be bad. That fun sustains the narrative for a while, but Ford\u2019s smart script is a case study in quietly, constantly ratcheting up the stakes, all while sneaking in a decent dose of social (and economic) commentary. It sort of goes without saying, but it\u2019s clear that, as a pretty white girl, Emily has an advantage in these in-store situations over the other folks in that first orientation, but that privilege only takes her so far. The running thread that undergirds the events is that Emily was, clearly, just one bad choice from shipwrecking her entire life, and the poverty of her available options is made crystal clear in a single but effective scene late in the picture, featuring the always welcome Gina Gershon as a potential boss at a \u201creal job\u201d who, of course, expects Emily to start as an unpaid intern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emily the Criminal<\/em> truly comes into focus in its handling of that scene \u2013 a tightly woven explainer of a generation\u2019s frustrations and anger, of the feeling that the deck is perpetually stacked against them. \u201cMotherfuckers will just keep taking from you and taking from you until you make the goddamn rules yourself,\u201d Emily later explodes. \u201cThat\u2019s what this is about. Am I wrong?\u201d And when she decides to take something back, in spite of the risk, it\u2019s genuinely involving; we\u2019re with her, and scared for her, because the movie has been so evenly keeled that this thing could go either way. She has a real \u201chow did I get here\u201d moment near the picture\u2019s end, and Plaza doesn\u2019t overplay it; she lets the emotions of the sequence wash over her, and work her over. Plaza is one of the producers of the film, and she knows what she\u2019s doing; it feels like we\u2019re being reintroduced to her, and what she can do.\u00a0 “Emily the Criminal” is out Friday in limited release.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/emily2-1024x585.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nA<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n