Emily the Criminal's intriguing story and committed performance from Aubrey Plaza brought great high notes, but slow sections and a sad conclusion added some low notes.
Emily the Criminal chronicles a woman's impossible struggle to find work and survive with the insurmountable burden of her criminal record standing in the way. Eventually, honest employment seems impossible, so she turns to a more lucrative but more illegal method of income. Her path to success in the credit card fraud racket was interesting, with all the dangers of her new work and the pressure of avoiding getting caught. Unfortunately, the plot's pacing ebbed and flowed between long sections of an engaging and exciting story and long sections of slower, less interesting content. The title's meaning transformed as the movie progressed and the characters developed, but the final moments just saddened me. The character growth came at the expense of others and kept me from being able to cheer for where everything ended.