Butler's Cinema Scene

“EMILY THE CRIMINAL” My rating: B (Theaters)

95 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A seemingly normal young woman finds a new career on the wrong side of the law in “Emily the Criminal,” a low-keyed drama that argues persuasively that when the system is rigged crime actually does pay.

Aubrey Plaza is our titular protagonist, a young woman with a dead-end job hauling catered lunches to high-rise L.A. offices, a huge college loan debt, and an art degree she can’t put to use.

As John Patton Ford’s film begins Emily is undergoing a job interview in which she is caught trying to hide the fact that she has a criminal record. Evidently she once assaulted a boyfriend…whether or not he deserved it is an open question. The fact of her arrest is enough to keep Emily  from being hired by any reputable business.

A catering co-worker suggests something, well, a bit dicey.  And soon Emily finds herself with a dozen or so other economic burnouts being addressed by Youcef (Theo Rossi), who informs them that they are needed as “dummy shoppers.”  

The gig is not dangerous and no one will be physically hurt, Youcef announces in businesslike tones that eerily echo every new-employee orientation session you’ve ever sat through. But it is illegal, he admits.

Basically Emily and her fellow shoppers will be given a credit card — the information is stolen, Yuocef acknowledges — with which to buy a big flat-screen television.  They will bring the electronics to Youcef; he will pay them $200 in cash.

Easy money.

Emily is ready to walk out but there’s something about Youcef — perhaps it’s his honesty in revealing the illegality of the operation — that makes her put her conscience on the back burner.  Her first gig goes smoothly.

Her second, though, quickly turns hairy.  She’s supposed to use a credit card and forged money order to pick up a luxury car, and it’s pretty clear that the foreign types who are doing the selling are a bit shady themselves. Emily barely gets away with the vehicle and a bloody nose.

She’s shaken…but also stirred.  One of the marvels of Plaza’s performance is the way she mines her character’s central core of anger and alienation.  If the world won’t give Emily a  break, she’ll make her own.

Emily gets one last chance to go straight with a gig at a hipster ad agency;  during the interview the CEO (Gina Gershon) reveals that it’s a non-paying internship that may — or may not — result in actual employment. It’s one indignity too many for our girl, who storms out more determined than ever to make it any way she can.

Meanwhile her relationship with Youcef segues from student/mentor to hot and heavy.  Youcef (you may remember Rossi as one of the biker regulars on “Sons of Anarchy”) is a sweet fella who takes Emily to meet his Lebanese mama (Sheila Korsi); in fact, Emily will learn that Youcef is way too nice a guy for the illegal business in which he’s involved. 

Ford’s screenplay so matter-of-factly presents Emily’s situation that her bad moral choices make perfect sense; meanwhile he’s slowly turning up the tension as our girl’s escapades become ever more dangerous.

Holding down the whole shebang is Plaza, who plays Emily absolutely straight but with a deep pocket of percolating rage.  There’s not a sign of the actress‘ trademark snark; in fact, aside from some grimly satiric jabs at the 21st century work environment, the film is humorless.

| Robert W. Butler