Review: EMILY THE CRIMINAL

Emily can't get a break. Compressed by a massive student loan she fails to get anything like the job she's qualified for (graphic design) because of an assault charge in her history which rises to the surface at every job interview. Her friend who did break through tries but fails to help her. Her catering job will take her nowhere further than staving off the interest of the loan. When a co worker gives her the number to call she takes it up, knowing it will be illegal. How illegal? Credit card fraud on an industrial scale. The first taste is easy. It will be followed by jobs with higher payouts and greater risks with worse possible outcomes. Hey, beats working.

This fable of desperation and risk-thrill doesn't let up for many breaths, pausing only to allow the central characters a little growth to allow us to care or at least understand their bad choices. The title doesn't just refer to Emily's life of crime as a fraudster but points to the difficulties of having that blot on your life story that blocks you from easy access to the mainstream world to get a foothold on a life-build. In Emily's case it's a minor assault charge but it could be a state premier's bad call when young in dressing up in nazi gear for a party (not that kind of party) or anything that can rise up to the surface and bite. She's considered a criminal before she can get that one job that might begin to turn the economic prison key.

This is why we have little trouble watching her envelope herself in that most detested of crimes, scamming. Instead of disgust we feel fascination at the process, the thinking and the everyday actions of the carriage. Once established, she looks less awkward beside her successful friend at parties but springs back when the means she has built is under attack. This will lead to an action that will either shock us or have us nodding: is it a surrender to criminality or grasping control?

This is made workable by the casting of Aubrey Plaza. Plaza has long shaken the deadpan awkwardness schtick that got her noticed on Parks and Recreation and, even though that still pursues her, has proved time and again to be a strong lead with depth. I first noticed this in Ingrid Goes West. The movie is a dark and aching satire on loneliness and social media but the poster winks out a message of quirky comedy; she was still being sold as April from Parks and Rec. If nothing shook that properly before this one has a fighting chance. Plaza has reached in and found grit and grimness to add to the quirk she was given to fill (and had already broken with real pathos in Ingrid).

This was a MIFF pick that I decided against as I assumed it would get a cinema release on Plaza's name alone. I watched it on Netflix. I passed as I looked at the casting and the synopsis and thought it was probably a quirky indy rather than the tough crime tale it is, which was me doing the same thing as the Ingrid Goes West poster. but then I did see Dual which proved to be the opposite case ... almost. This is less a revelation than, say, Adam Sandler was in Punch Drunk Love as Plaza has already jettisoned the cuteness in her film roles (if you YouTube her she still plays up to the old persona in interviews but by now it just looks like self-protection). No, it's more like proof of concept, a clear indication of a career to come. If I'm right, I'm in the queue.

Emily the Criminal is currently streaming on Netflix.