Tense and very successful thriller, “Emily the Criminal” could well find a good place on the list of winners of the 48th Deauville American Film Festival. A tale of an almost ordinary criminal destiny, John Patton Ford’s film, with a radiant Aubrey Plaza in the title role, is also an unstoppable critic of the American labor market.
Would the last film in the competition be the best?
Presented on the morning of Friday, September 9, Emily the Criminal is the last film in competition at the 48th Deauville American Film Festival to be shown. And in the list of 13 films that compete for an award, this first feature film by John Patton Ford could well create a surprise. Indeed, the serendipity of the programming may have ensured that the best was saved for last.
In the middle of a competition that mainly gave pride of place to social chronicles and dramas touching on childhood, adolescence and the family, Emily the Criminal is distinguished from the outset by its full inscription, as Watcherin genre cinema.
In this case, the thriller genre, whose director and main actress Aubrey Plaza – also the film’s producer – brilliantly use the codes to tell Emily’s story. The story of a young woman of goodwill who, coming up against the extreme harshness of the American labor market, will plunge into the criminal world of Los Angeles. And we won’t make a mystery of it, Emily the Criminalperfectly calibrated, nervous and hypnotically dark, appears as a resounding success.
A clear social critique
Emily is still young, maybe in her early thirties, and she has a very large student loan to pay off. She lives with a roommate and would like to get back to her art, painting and design, but in addition to her debt she has a criminal record. To survive, she works as a delivery girl for a “ghost kitchen”. One day, one of his colleagues offers him a “good plan”, which will earn him $200 in one hour. From there, a gear is set up. She meets Youcef (Theo Rossi), who runs her small business of scams. With him, she will then penetrate further into crime.
One of the great qualities ofEmily the Criminal is to offer an anti-heroine character very far from the clichés of the genre. Emily is not in love, is not a physical fighter, is not a femme fatale. Emily just wants to settle her debts and maybe do something with her life. Without fear and without regrets, Aubrey Plaza delivers a very successful performance of a woman who understood that the American labor market does not offer second chances, uses individuals like flesh for profit, would always pay with a slingshot and crush the weakest.
So, grasping that the myth of the American dream is well and truly dead, she charts her course without ever letting herself be defeated. Until a rather happy ending but which does not deny the overall darkness ofEmily the Criminal.
A successful thriller
Revealed in the cinema in comedies like funny people and Scott Pilgrimand on television in the series Parks and RecreationAubrey Plaza finally shows the full extent of her talent and shines as Emily. There is in his character, marauder of the streets and nights of an inhospitable Los Angelessomething of those of Michael Mann, or even those of Nicolas Winding Refn version Drive. Determined, she does not allow herself to be counted and embraces, without going through the bushes, the only destiny that remains to her. That of becoming a criminal.
Responsive, compact and without downtime, Emily the Criminal is sublime when Emily takes charge of the story, going from employee of Youcef to leader of her own destiny. “Small” movie, Emily the Criminal is nonetheless a very fine promise for the rest of the career of its author, with his gallery of villainous secondary charactersor else cowardly and selfish for those who are on the “good side” of a system much more responsible for the ambient violence than are individuals.
Marking and captivating from start to finish, Emily the Criminal is definitely one of our favorites of this 48th Deauville American Film Festival.
