‘Finding Emily’ Review: Angourie Rice and Spike Fearn Star in a Well-Acted, Poorly Written Mess
Romantic comedies aren’t known for their technical mastery when it comes to the cinematic craft. In a decent rom-com, this doesn’t matter much. A good story with cute leads, solid performances and a teenie bit of drama can go a long way so far as the enjoyability of a genre predominantly made up of popcorn flicks is concerned. Unfortunately, Alicia MacDonald’s “Finding Emily” only ticks one of those boxes.
The story follows Owen (Spike Fearn) as he tries to reach Emily (Sadie Soverall) after their meet cute of a lovely night of dancing and batting their eyelashes at each other. Emily, dressed as a fairy (which is important because we’re going to call her Fairy Emily going forward), leaves her number in Owen’s phone before sprinting off in a rush with her friends. Problem is, she was a wee bit tipsy and distracted, and she missed a digit. This prompts Owen to begin his quest to find his manic pixie dream girl, which takes him directly to Emily Raine (Angourie Rice).
NuEmily is a psych major whose thesis is dependent on the theory that love is psychosis and we, as humans, have evolved beyond the need for it. Needing a final subject for her thesis study, Emily quickly decides that she’s going to help Owen find his long lost “love.”
There’s a fleeting moment in the beginning of “Finding Emily” that you might find yourself excited that this new entry into the rom-com pantheon is focusing on male yearning rather than showing the woman twisting herself in knots for attention. Alas, that excitement is short-lived. It’s quickly revealed that Emily, despite her high and mighty take on love, is just as infatuated with a schoolmate. What unfolds after the film’s lack of depth becomes evident is a story so lost in its own ethical quandaries that it has no time to address how many utterly illogical or otherwise hollow decisions are made from start to finish.
To be clear, “utterly illogical” isn’t in reference to silly miscommunications or ships passing in the wind. Those are perfectly normal rom-com tropes! No, the absurdities here are things like a Gen Z man not knowing what emailing on BCC means but being perfectly capable of dropping a pin. Lest you think I’m nitpicking on that whole BCC thing, please know that it’s entirely central to the plot and distractingly stupid. Yet, that laziness isn’t the greatest sin of Rachel Hirons’ script.
“Finding Emily” is a film packed to the brim with tertiary characters, every single one of which is a caricature. From Minnie Driver’s detached principle to Kat Ronney’s Emily Thewlis — the angry feminist — not a single woman in this film is a person. Rice’s Emily is as close as the film comes, but she’s so detached from her own reality that any “depth” barely counts as a success.
Moreover, Thewlis herself illustrates the film’s primary narrative problem. Every issue that she brings up in response to Owen’s overreach is very real and should be taken seriously, but her character is the butt of every joke. She’s too much, she’s too loud, her hair is too pink, her passion to protect women too cloying. It’s a parody of a character that belongs in a “Not Another Teen Movie” or “Mean Girls” but she’s in a film playing its story entirely straight. Take that criticism and attach it to every other character in “Finding Emily” and you’ve got a solid understanding of the film’s inability to communicate tone or accomplish its own intent.
In the spirit of offering Hirons’ “Finding Emily” script some unearned grace, that intent seems to be to have a conversation about modern dating and the boxes we put men and women in. What happens in execution, however, is a film made for people who believe the “male loneliness epidemic” is women’s fault, and that #MeToo went too far. The only resolution Thewlis, Fairy Emily and the other character shells get are lines of text in a music video montage over the closing credits. It’s here where the film insists that Fairy Emily is “not a manic pixie dream girl” and is “her own person with her own issues.” If only the film went so far as to illustrate such a thing.
If “Finding Emily” has anything going for it, it’s the performances of Fearn and Rice. Their chemistry is believable (albeit more so as friends than romantic partners), and each actor is doing the best they can with what was put on the page for their characters. Fearn’s Owen is appropriately earnest, albeit painstakingly dumb for no apparent reason, while Rice’s Emily is at least somewhat heartfelt despite her abject cruelty and utter lack of self reflection. A special shoutout goes to Prasanna Puwanarajah for his turn as Professor Westlake — Emily’s psychology mentor — as well. He’s as much of a caricature as everyone else in the film, but at least he’s a funny one.
Regrettably, those performances aren’t enough to save “Finding Emily.” Manufactured drama revolving around stupidity unbefitting of the generation illustrated coupled with flat characters and a complete failure of tone hold this one back from even empty-calorie kind of fun.
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