Emily the Criminal: A Nuanced Look at What Causes Crime

In the last decade, AMC’s Breaking Bad set the standard for what a story about crime could be. The descent of Walter White from teacher to crime lord is unparalleled in modern history. That is not to say Emily the Criminal is on the same level as Breaking Bad (although maybe if the former was expanded out into a series it could have had the time to come closer), however the exploration of the complex systems in place that cause a person to fall into these acts is similar and makes Emily the Criminal worth a watch.

While Breaking Bad is the fall of Walter White, Emily the Criminal is the fall of Emily (Aubrey Plaza) who turns to credit card fraud as a result of her inability to find and keep stable and well-paying employment. While she starts out small, buying expensive things with stolen credit cards for someone else to sell, she ends up growing and becoming more enterprising, eventually striking out on her own and taking on all the risk herself.

The movie is a little ham-fisted in its messaging, which will almost certainly turn off viewers. The point of the movie is to show Emily’s lack of options before turning into crime, and then once she has turned into it, how the scenarios in her normal life continue to push her negatively. On two separate occasions, Emily is in interviews in attempts to start working a regular job. Both times, things happen in the interview that are reflective of things that happen in reality during the hiring process, are legal, and at the same time are also not entirely fair to applicants and people in the positions. That said, both times this happens, Emily feels more like a mouthpiece for the writer than a character living through the situation.

The same goes for the student loan issue that frames Emily’s decision to go into crime. The movie is frontloaded with student loan talk, however that is dropped off as the movie goes on. This is similar to Breaking Bad where Walter’s cancer diagnosis takes a backseat to his enterprise, however Breaking Bad had the benefit of over 60 episodes over five seasons to lay out the story while Emily the Criminal has around two hours to do the same. This discrepancy leads to Emily’s journey feeling short-changed, and as if the original motivation was just a smokescreen and excuse for her to take the step towards crime. This is compounded with her criminal history being highlighted in the film which makes her fall feel more like a foregone conclusion instead of the response of a woman pushed to her wits end, which is what the movie was obviously going for.

All of that said, Emily the Criminal is definitely worth a watch because it is a profoundly human story. Emily’s fall (as presented) is still interesting, even if it could have been slightly better in execution. It feels too scattershot in its political messaging for anything to land properly, however the underlying film does still work.

Final Rating: 8/10