Issue 9: Jaws, Emily the Criminal and the choices we make because of money
Hello darlings,
Welcome back to my newsletter where I share short, poorly edited notes about stuff I find interesting.
This weekend, I did something I occasionally do–had a two-movie day. The first was a 3D screening of Jaws, a movie I don’t think I’ve ever seen on a big screen. It looked and sounded great although the 3D was kind of pointless after the opening scenes.
The second was a film with Aubrey Plaza called Emily the Criminal. It’s one of the many small indie films that don’t get much of a theatrical release. I try to see them in theatres when I can though the runs are often all too short. Here in Vancouver, these ones tend to show up in the Cineplex in the International Village mall, which is a destination unto itself.
As it happened, it was an interesting double bill because Emily the Criminal has a distinct 1970s vibe. Though the problems it explores are contemporary, tonally and aesthetically, it has a lot in common with '70s working class crime fables like Blue Collar or Taxi Driver. Plaza plays an artist who is struggling to pay off a massive student loan debt as a delivery food driver, one of the few jobs she's able to secure because of a criminal conviction from her youth.
One day, she’s offered the chance to make $200 in an hour doing something that isn’t exactly legal. She discovers a skill for the work, and with the help of Theo Rossi’s Youcef, gets deeper into the business until, predictably, she winds up over her head. It’s a story we’ve heard before, but without going into spoilers, there are a few surprising reversals that make it fresh.
What drew me to the film was Plaza herself who has become one of the most interesting performers I’ve seen on screen over the last few years–something about that deadpan affect that can be simultaneously menacing and tragic. Even when she’s playing the embodiment of a mad superhero’s nightmare in Noah Hawley’s cracked X-Men riff Legion, I want to hang around her to see what will happen.
Emily is a much more nuanced performance, of course, but Plaza still has that edge, even when she’s trying her hardest to swallow what the world throws at her. She’s a talented artist who dragged herself out of working class hell only to run up against wall after wall, often because of her unwillingness to play nice with those who wish to use her, a quality that gets misread at one point as entitlement. Even when things get violent, the movie maintains a brilliant ambiguity around the morality of her actions, allowing her to be neither hero nor villain.
It got me thinking about the many decisions I’ve made in my own life that have hinged on money, how it held me back but also forced me to find my own way to forge ahead. I’ve certainly wound up in situations where I could have made things easier on myself, but I can’t bring myself to regret them.
I’d love to go deeper into the ways this film spoke to me, but I don’t want to spoil it for you. If you see it, find me on Twitter and let me know what you thought! If you'd like to read more or subscribe, you can do so here.
~Erika