Saddled with massive student loan debt and unable to use her degree given a mark on her criminal record, Emily (Aubrey Plaza) ekes by at a corporate catering company.  One day, she is given a number by her coworker to call and make an easy $200 cash.  With her back against the wall, she gives the number a call and gets involved in a retail credit card scam using lifted information to buy appliances.  Soon, Emily begins taking on larger transactions, which come with a bigger payout, but also bigger risk. 

Emily the Criminal is a social drama mixed with crime thriller, written and directed by John Patton Ford.  Plaza leads the film with an impressive dramatic turn from her more recognizable comedy roles and feels at home in the thriller genre.  Released by Roadside Attractions, Emily the Criminal calls into light some social issues that are plaguing the recent graduate demographic, and while the film uses student debt as a springboard for the narrative and does not seek to examine the subject too deeply. 

Opposite Emily is Youcef (Theo Rossi) who runs the underground operation.  Seeing promise in Emily, the two form an unlikely working relationship, and as they continue working together a more personal relationship begins to form, too.  As the script begins to open up the world of the film, it finds rocky success, and this romantic angle is just one example.  The script eventually rebounds and this strange relationship begins to find its footing as it is put into the larger context of the film and the strained family obligations which motivate Youcef come to light.  The chemistry that Rossi and Plaza are able to foster is the driving force that makes this odd-couple pairing work as the film does not do much in the way of supporting it in its infancy. Brought about through dishonesty in an attempt to maintain appearances by both parties, suddenly there is a spark and while the duo makes it work, the foundation is rocky at best and it takes a while before audiences can accept this new dynamic. 

The biggest narrative hurdle of the film and something that it holds throughout its runtime is that it solves Emily’s problems way too conveniently.  There are a few instances where her back is against the wall, but through strokes of luck, she is able to narrowly escape.  This pattern takes its toll on the film as time and time again Emily falls into incredible coincidence to solve her problems.  While this greatly lessens the impact of the conclusions, the thrill of the chase is where the film excels, but it all ends up feeling quite hollow as chance saves our heroine time and time again. Emily suffers very little loss in the film, and while her arc is not devoid of hiccups, she comes away from everything a little too clean and it becomes hard to celebrate her victories since we never see her lose. 

Lastly, the film does seem unsure of itself in what it wants to accomplish.  There is a clear social element at the heart of the narrative, but it does not always seem fully fleshed out. It is nice to see a film lambaste the exploitation of recent graduates with long term, unpaid internships that dangle the promise of an interview like a carrot in front of the desperate workforce already saddled with massive debt for a degree that is required to enter into a job market that refuses to pay an approriate wage for the skills they require. The script has a few instances where it looks like it wants to engage with this dicotomy in a meaningful way as it sets the stage for a dicussion between the powers that be and Emily, but as quickly as it sets the senarios up, it just as quickly gives Emily a few mic drop lines and has her exit the scene. The one sidedness of the arguments here, even though the film is boasting the right message, just comes off as cheap and lazy writing. It is a motivating factor behind the story because crippling student debt and an impossible job market are core points of the narrative, but Ford seems hessitant to really take a deep and nuanced stand on the topic.

For what it is, Emily the Criminal is not a bad film. It is actually quite enjoyable, and while it has its share of weak points, it is hard to write the film off completely. With strong performances, clear pathways to achieving goals, and a few twists along the way, it is a taught modern thriller that engages and entertains. Using that most basic definition, Emily the Criminal is a sucsess, and while a film like Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler (2014) is a darker and grittier social study that examines the crumbling job market, Plaza’s Emily leads us through a differnt kind of underbelly thats carries its own dangers and thrills. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as the saying goes, and though Emily’s situation is set up as both incredibly dire and even more so, relatable, the script would have benifited tenfold had it been a little meaner and forced Emily into some tighter situations that involved a little more inginutiy to escape from.