“Emily the Criminal” or when the scam becomes a means of survival

It’s a thrilling thriller, Emily the Criminal of John Patton Ford which closed the official Deauville competition this Friday morning September 9th. An edition that will have shunned this genre a little this year. A very tense first feature film that brought critics and audiences together.

No question for Emily (Aubrey Plaza) to resign herself to living off her meager salary as a cafeteria employee in Los Angeles. She, like many American students, took out a loan for her studies which she had to give up after a traffic violation. She lives with a roommate and struggles to repay the colossal sum she owes.

Also when a colleague offers her a solution to earn some money, she does not hesitate. $200 per trade. It involves using fake credit cards that she has to use in stores to buy hi-fi equipment, resold by traffic organizers. The technique is known as the “fictitious buyer”. Emily has nerve and is fearless. But she quickly falls into the spiral of “always more” and will quickly plunge into delinquency. Until wanting to rip off the organizers herself, risking her life.

The director has found his heroine in the person of actress Aubrey Plaza, who in the United States is best known as a comedian and queen of stand-up. An actress we follow, with jubilation, for 1h34 in her visceral desire to escape her condition.

At the end of the presentation of the film this Friday, September 9 in the morning, the director admitted that it was his own story of a broke student that inspired the film. At the end of his studies, he had to repay nearly 100,000 dollars in student loans, an astronomical sum when he was not yet in the working world. He also admitted to having been inspired by true stories of credit card scammers, some of whom even play in the film. Beyond its entertaining aspect, Emily the Criminal is also a critique of the American dream and the race for success and money. Whatever the price.