Critic Reviews

It’s a crime movie, but as the title suggests, it’s a personality study, a detailed one that grows in dimension. It’s fascinating to watch Plaza fill in those details. Her face is almost blank, but only almost. We always know what she’s thinking.

This is John Patton Ford's directorial debut, and it is an extremely impressive piece of work.

You always know a Plaza performance will be good, but over the past few years, Plaza has seemed to make it a priority to surprise her audiences with just how good she is.

Ford isn’t interested in a slick, high-speed thriller, and the action in Emily the Criminal feels grounded in reality. Plaza, whose dramatic presence is as compelling as her comedic skill, imbues the character with genuine vulnerability alongside her grit.

Emily the Criminal is the face and voice of not just the summer, but an American generation right now, looking for a break and desperate enough to cross the line if they don’t get it.

Rossi and Plaza make for a sizzling team; we believe every syllable of their dialogue, every development in their relationship. It’s almost criminal, how good these two are together.

At a time when few movies display either a shred of originality or a fresh slant on an old genre, and so many are little more than cookie-cutter derivations of each other, it’s energizing to see something as keenly observed and uniquely competent as Emily the Criminal. It’s a tense and engaging thriller that looks and feels distinctively different.

In 95 minutes, Ford unfurls a gritty and suspenseful L.A. noir that also serves to examine the structural issues that uphold wealth inequality in this country. But Emily the Criminal isn’t trying to be preachy or political, it’s just authentic, and urgent, and Plaza’s performance keeps the emotional and physical honesty at the forefront.

Ford imbues his story with a tense, vibrating energy, moving briskly between the breathlessness of a heist thriller and the sharper barbs of social satire.

Emily the Criminal is an excellent example of how to make an effective thriller on a smaller scale.