Taking Credit Into Her Own Hands

It's an old story--government or corporate corruption or incompetence fosters low level crime. People get so desperate, it seems like they have no other choice but crime. One such person is Emily, the title character of 2022's Emily the Criminal. Anyone who's been stuck under the weight of student loans and a job market allergic to entry level will get a lot of vicarious pleasure from this movie. And it's not bad for other people, too.

Emily (Aubrey Plaza) is no everywoman, though. In addition to the usual troubles young adults have to face in job interviews, she also has a felony assault on her record and she has a hard time keeping her cool when it's brought up. So she's stuck in a low wage food delivery job where the boss abuses the lack of a union to monkey with her schedule and pay.

A lot of the movie feels like it was written, let's say, "top down". That is, not written by someone who experienced the typical problems involving student debt and a corrupt job market, but by someone who reads about these things in the news. So when Emily gets an interview with a magazine boss played by Gina Gershon, Gershon is a little more straightforward than such a woman would probably be in real life. She "explains" to Emily how she should be grateful to get an unpaid internship because she, Gershon's character, had to work for a bunch of men in her first job as a secretary. But this layup gives Emily the perfect opportunity for a satisfying riposte; "But you were paid."

Emily's already a pretty assertive young woman but she gains a lot more confidence when she gets caught up in a credit card fraud racket. We see her getting pulled in by slow degrees, a little unsure at first. But by the time she's selling the cars and TVs she buys with the bogus cards on her own, it's starting to make a lot of sense to her. I loved a scene in which, at a posh party to which she's invited by her fashion model friend, a couple of rich hipsters ask her what she does for a living. You can see her thinking through the options of what to say--food delivery?--before finally deciding to flat out say, "Credit card fraud." Oddly enough, she can feel more self-respect in saying that. Which says a lot about society's perspective on the working class.

It's ultimately a wish fulfillment fantasy as Emily gets more and more power and freedom. It touches on real world issues but it's not entirely realistic. And that's a big part of the fun.

Emily the Criminal is available on Netflix.