Amy Nicholson “Emily the Criminal,” by John Patton Ford, is a world-weary social problem fable about a young girl who enters the woods — make that, modern day Los Angeles — and confronts three big bad job interviews.
One job asks her to be a crook, one job treats her like a crook, and one job pays so little it’s essentially stealing from her.
The girl, Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is an embittered art student with $70,000 in college debt, a felony conviction for aggravated assault and essentially no leverage to negotiate her terms of employment besides the pepper spray in her purse, which won’t help much for the two white-collar gigs.
The title of this chilly thriller announces which job she picks. Her circumstances explain why. But despite the fact that the camera rarely backs away from studying Plaza’s wary eyes and tense mouth in close-up, this character piece feels as distanced from its taciturn subject as if it was merely monitoring her on security camera.
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