Day: September 25, 2022

It only took me five weeks to finally watch John Patton Ford‘s Emily The Criminal, which is pretty close to being as good as I’ve been told. It’s not crazy-holy-shit good but good-good, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s basically a realistic and wholly unpretentious small-time crime film…no muss or fuss and down to business. But it’s only moderately involving at first. It takes a while to get there.

Aubrey Plaza is suitably fierce and guarded in the title role, a debt-ridden 30something in Los Angeles who gets involved with a phony-credit-card ring. At 93 minutes Emily takes a good 45 or 50 to really put the hook in and get moving, but the last 35 to 40 minutes are quite exceptional.

An expert actress who always invites you in and tells you what’s up, Plaza delivers a pro job as Emily. I really loved her moments in which she was angry and alarmed, and especially a “cut the bullshit” job interview scene with Gina Gershon.

Plaza is one of the producers (along with Tyler Davidson and Drew Sykes) but you know who’s also quite arresting and compelling? Theo Rossi, who plays Youcef, Emily’s mentor-in-crime and later her lover. I’d never paid attention to this guy before, but I will from here on. There’s one moment towards the end when Rossi disappointed me, or his character did rather. I won’t get into it but you have to watch your back.

Emily’s arc is what makes the film fascinating — she starts out as an almost listless, half-invested scammer who’s basically an in-and-outer, but the more criminality takes over her life the stronger and tougher she becomes. By the end she’s almost become a version of Neil McAuley or Michael Corleone at the end of The Godfather. The film basically says “theft and criminality is its own buzz, but you have to become a kind of fierce animal to really survive in this realm…you have to convince others that you’re scary when crossed so they’d netter not fuck with you.”

One reason I didn’t get to Emily before last night was that it’s still not streaming. I’m sorry but it didn’t strike me as worth $18 or $20 plus popcorn and whatnot, and it’s not like it’s playing in a lot of theatres.

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Yesterday I tried to elaborate upon my positive Telluride reaction to Sam Mendes‘ Empire of Light (Searchlight, 12.9).  Toward the end of the comment thread Rosso Veneziano replied as follows:  “I respect your take but the general consensus is that the movie is bad. 58 on Metacritic, 47% on Rotten Tomatoes…and that means rotten. It’s not just critics at Telluride — the TIFF reviews were even worse.”

HE response:  You first have to remember that many if not most of the critical elite are not standing on the same terra firma as the rest of us.  In more ways than one they’re living on their own frilly planet.  Every consensus opinion that emanates from this bunch has to be filtered through this basic reality.  Most of them are not of this earth.

Trust me — they’re dismissing Empire of Light because they’re unable to buy the curious but ultimately poignant romantic bond between the two leads, played by Michael Ward and Olivia Colman.  (If Ward’s Stephen character was played by a non-POC, the reactions would be quite different.)  I myself was skeptical of this dynamic going in, but the fine writing, acting and overall period swoon effect, which is partly if not largely due to excellent production design plus Roger Deakins‘ handsome cinematography…all of this won me over.

Filmmakers are generally required to depict POCs with a paintbrush of presentism these days (i.e., presenting them according to contemporary sensibilities), and many critics, knowing this, will get all riled when a Black character is presented “incorrectly” within a period film. Many elite critics see themselves as white-knight figures whose task is to bestow dignity or even majesty upon characters of color.

Ward’s performance will never be criticized, of course, but there’s no dodging the fact that he’s a handsome actor of considerable poise and charisma playing a decades-old period character in a film written and directed by an older white man. (Not unlike Mahershala Ali in Green Book.)

And there’s a fascinating violent moment in this film, by the way, that I haven’t mentioned. Racist skinhead goons are lurking on the fringes of this story, and early on a few of them are taunting Stephen on a sidewalk, and one strikes him with a head slap. And what does Stephen do? He does the smart thing by ignoring the attacker as he continues to walk away. He knows these animals are looking for an excuse to beat him senseless, and he doesn’t give them that.

A violent moment such as this runs against the presentism aesthetic. A Black man of today would never ignore or cower from an attack of this nature if it was depicted in a present-tense film.  Our post-George Floyd mythology demands a greater measure of defiance and dignity.  And yet Mendes, adhering to the ugly reality of things in rural 1980 England as much as Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza was truthfully immersed in the Los Angeles culture of the ‘70s, does the stand-up thing.  I know that the instant I noticed Stephen’s reaction to the head slap, I went “wow…that’s unusual but then again that’s Mendes.”