Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is a real anti-heroine of our time. A woman in her thirties who is up to her neck in debt and still struggling to pay off her student loan, in large part because she has a DUI conviction from her youth that prevents her from getting a better paying job. Due to problems with the law in her youth, she didn’t even manage to finish graphic design college, and now she survives in Los Angeles doing low-paid jobs such as food delivery without employment and any labor rights as a kind of subcontractor of the Glova type or others. Immediately in the opening scene, we see that her talks for a more permanent and better-paying job go to hell when a potential employer touches her file, and by chance a co-worker will refer her to a shady job that guarantees earnings of $200 an hour.
And little by little, Emily will venture into the world of crime and will realize that she is very good at it. She will start out as something called a Dummy Shopper, i.e. a person who uses stolen credit cards to buy goods in stores for an established fraud network, and then she will become somewhat more ambitious. “Emily the Criminal” was John Patton Ford’s debut film, with which this young American filmmaker presented himself at Sundance, and this exciting, dynamic and surprisingly high-quality crime-thriller presents an incredibly cynical picture of today’s America, the famous land of opportunities and the realization of dreams.
Of course, that fairy tale about the American dream has long since been overcome, after all, the realization of dreams and success from the beginning was not intended for everyone, and Ford made a film that brilliantly shows what that American nightmare looks like today, rather than the American dream. It was the role of Emily and probably the best so far for Plaza, who we have mostly seen so far in some nonsensical romantic comedies and movies for teenagers, and here she is perfect as a kind of symbol of her generation and a person who simply couldn’t make her dreams come true.
And when it was already not possible for her to succeed in some legal business, she will find herself in crime, card fraud, and “Emily the Criminal” brings a great insight into that half-world. At the moment when she is already starting to make good money through crime, her best friend will arrange a job interview for her in some modern hipster company where she herself works. But the job interview will turn into a complete disaster when Emily realizes that her boss is not offering her a job at all, but a few months of internship, an unpaid internship, and only after that will she see if she will be hired permanently or if she will find a new fool to work for her for free. That fantastic scene is perhaps the best in all of this extraordinary, modern crime fiction, and it shows that present-day trap.
Young people first get hooked on student loans, so when and if they finish college, they are already up to their necks in debt and don’t know when and how they will pay it back, and when they reach the labor market, they are offered internships, selling fairy tales about patient and hard work. , gaining experience and similar crap that makes me sick. As in our country, when tenders are announced for young employees who have graduated college but have five years of work experience, this smart, cynical and embittered young woman understands that the system is not designed for people like her. But when that system doesn’t work for her and she doesn’t want it, she will find a system where she can make money relatively quickly. Of course, not without danger, and Emily will see very well all the dangers that lurk in that half-world.
The fraud business will become more and more risky, she will realize that she is constantly dealing with extremely dangerous people and that the rules are significantly different from those in the real world. A world that rejected her and didn’t give her a chance, a world that pushed her to the sidelines and predestined her life and destiny, but a world in which no one will barge into her apartment in the middle of the night that she shares with two Japanese men, beat her up and steal everything from her. and a dog. “Emily the Criminal” was one of the best American genre films in recent times, a first-class thriller full of excitement and surprises, additionally seasoned with cynicism that so brilliantly captures the spirit of the times and society.