ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Aubrey Plaza

Emily the Criminal: Dancing with our Dark Side

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“All it takes is one bad day” – The Joker

Although no one wants to become the famed DC villain, the Joker’s infamous quote suggests that everyone has the potential to do evil. Despite our best efforts, one bad day or moment can lead to so many more.

While entirely unrelated to the Clown Prince of Crime, this terrifying reality remains the ethos behind Emily the Criminal.

Emily the Criminal tells the story of Emily (Aubrey Plaza), a young woman struggling to deal with her student debt. Unable to find work due to her past criminal record, she becomes desperate for cash. Though, when a co-worker empathizes with her problems, he gives her a mysterious phone number to call where she might find an opportunity to help pay the bills. After making the call, she meets Youcef (Theo Rossi), a charismatic middleman who deals with stolen credit cards. While Emily is initially apprehensive, she accepts the job and the two begin to work together to expand their business ventures.

Directed by John Patton Ford, Emily the Criminal is a gradual slide into darkness. Tightly written and executed, Emily is a surprisingly solid film that knows when to pull its punches and when to hit hard. Through his use of visuals and lighting, Ford creates an atmosphere of increasing dread. For example, as Emily descends further into the darkness, so too does Ford increasingly dim the lights. Whereas Emily begins in broad daylight, by its conclusion, its characters are fully immersed in the shadows, emphasizing the darkness that has consumed them.

Even so, what truly holds the film together is some solid work by Plaza. Known for taking on heavier roles, Plaza has never shied away from the darker edges of society. (In fact, even her most well-known role as April Ludgate from Parks and Recreation often celebrated her dark side.) In Emily, however, Plaza brings a repressed fire to her character that burns more brightly as it is gradually unleashed. At the same time though, there’s a likability to Emily that shines through. Even as she leans further into the criminal underworld, we empathize with her as a viewer until we can no longer support her actions.

And empathy is a key element to Emily’s success.

Grappling with issues of debt and past problems, Emily speaks to the frustrations of a generation who are struggling to find their way. Having committed a felony in her youth, Emily desperately yearns for a fresh start. However, her criminal record works against her, keeping her in a box that prevents her from living her life. Saddled with her past and simply looking to pay the bills, she begrudgingly breaks the law simply because it pays better than her minimum wage job. Despite her record, she is not a woman who wants to do bad. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Nevertheless, her personal struggles have pushed her too far and she desperately needs help. 

In this way, Emily recognizes that, more often than not, evil does not exist in a vacuum and is often formed by the circumstances and hurt. In Emily’s case, her greatest desire is simply to be free from debt and free from the judgment of others. Although we struggle to justify her actions, she feels that she has no other alternative under the circumstances. In fact, even those that try to help her find themselves limited with that they can offer. (After all, what good is an internship at a major corporation if it’s unpaid?) As such, her small infractions become a slippery slope of compromise that cause her to fall further into a life of crime, stealing pieces of her soul along the way. Once afraid to go too far, she soon begins to feel that her greatest problem is not going ‘far enough’. Whereas she once had the opportunity for redemption, Emily no longer wants to turn things around.

Emily the Criminal

For her, ‘one bad day’ has now become her world.

With fight and fury, Emily the Criminal spirals into the shadows yet feels grounded enough to be authentic. Even in its wildest moments, there’s something so real about Emily. This feels like a cautionary tale for a generation saddled with the emotional burdens of insurmountable debt and lack of income—and the rage that is bubbling underneath the surface.

Emily the Criminal is available in theatres on Friday, August 12th, 2022.

Black Bear: The Roar of Infidelity

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Though taking place within the same location and cast, Black Bear tells two distinct yet thematically linked narratives. In the first portion, the film follows Blair (Sarah Gadon) and Gabe (Christopher Abbott), a married couple who welcome Allison (Aubrey Plaza) into their home for the weekend. Temporarily renting a room online in their lakehouse, Allison inadvertently ignites a powder keg of mistrust between the couple and her quiet weekend spins out of control. In the second tale, Gabe (Abbott again) is a filmmaker and married to Allison (Plaza). When their project nears completion, Allison begins to suspect that her husband is having an affair with her co-star, Blair (Gadon).

Written and directed by Lawrence Michael Levine, Black Bear is a fascinating piece that becomes one of the more unique film experiences of 2020. By juxtaposing the two parallel but twisted tales against one another, Levine creates a sort of warped mirror experience where both films interact with one another without actually connecting. In doing so, Levine also somehow gives both projects more meaning as they play with the concepts of obsession, infidelity and toxic gender issues. 

However, despite its distinctive style, it’s ultimately the performances within the film that give Black Bear its teeth, especially from stars Gadon and Plaza. As both women are challenged with taking on the roles of faithful wife and potential paramour, each finds their own way to engage the material. Continuing to build up a solid body of work, Gadon may be one of the more underappreciated stars working in the industry today as she consistently invests herself in each role with focus and intensity. At the same time, Plaza’s work here may be some of the best work of her career. While Plaza is best known for her comedic work, it’s moments like this that showcase her ability to bring dramatic integrity to her work when given the opportunity.

Held up against one another, the two films fascinate for their ability to flip the relationship roles and responsibilities of everyone involved. Though both segments include marital infidelity, the journey towards that unfaithfulness is clearly marked well in advance. As humility and authentic care towards one another gives way to a battle for control, the carnage that ensues is not surprising. In both pieces, insecurities about themselves and their successes (and failures) lead characters to lose faith in their partner and intentionally drive wedges within their relationships.

Whereas the first half showcases the increasing [and almost forced] distance that occurs when trust is lost between partners, the latter portion demonstrates the damage that can be done when that trust is abused. In Black Bear, love is a cruel game where those involved feel threatened by traditional gender roles yet also yearn for signs of mutual respect and support. (Interestingly, while Levine’s primary metaphor within the first half seems to be the desire to create a perfect relationship, the second half focuses more on the creation of a perfect film, drawing a connection between authentic connection between people and simply creating a performance.)

While it could be argued that the film’s two distinct portions prevent Black Bear from ever fully delving into its characters or story, that would do the film a disservice. Through his creative use of mirrored storytelling, Levine provides Black Bear with a richer sense of texture that highlights the cracks and flaws that appear when relationships become self-serving in nature.

To hear our interview with director Lawrence Michael Levine, click here.

Black Bear is available in select theatres and on PVOD on Friday, December 4th, 2020.

Happiest Season: Everyone’s Story has a Place

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I’ll get right to the point: if you’re looking for something charming and funny as we cautiously look to the end of 2020, Happiest Season is everything you could possibly need.

Personally, I can handle about zero angst in movies right now. Call it a casualty of 2020, but my tolerance for anything overly serious or dramatic is essentially nonexistent, especially if it’s in a movie I’ve never seen. Now granted, there is the relational angst that is often the central conflict in holiday films, and Happiest Season totally has that covered. But it was a good angst, and I’ll explain why.

But first, let’s start with the cast. I have two words for you: Dan Levy. Yes, THAT Dan Levy of sweeping Emmy wins for Schitt’s Creek, one of People magazine’s Sexiest Men of Alive, and all around beloved by basically everyone these days. I don’t even know if he’s considered a main character or not as best friend John, but his presence alone is a reason to watch. Of course, stars like Kristen Stewart, Victor Garber, Mary Steenburgen, Aubrey Plaza, Mackenzie Davis, and Alison Brie (what a cast, amiright?) elevate this heartwarming story into something special.

Perfect couple Abby and Harper (Stewart and Davis respectively) make plans to visit Harper’s family for Christmas. But there is one *major* wrinkle in the plan – Harper’s parents don’t know she is gay and in a relationship with the “orphan roommate” she has brought home.  Compounded by her parents’ stress surrounding Ted’s bid for major (Ted and Tipper are played by Garbor and Steenburgen), Harper keeps Abby at arm’s length and back in the closet. Naturally some old flames of Harper’s show up, including her first girlfriend Riley (Aubrey Plaza). Between sisterly competition, pressure to impress, and secrets uncovered, everything compounds on Christmas Eve, and this seemingly perfect family explodes into disarray.

I’m going to leave it there as far as plot, because I’m hoping you will watch the film. (Make sure that you watch the credits too for the pictures that continue the story.) From here, I’m going to get a bit personal, so I hope you’ll stick around and indulge me for a moment or two.

Representation in film is something that I am becoming increasingly aware of because I believe that film is for everyone. Everyone should be able to look up or at a screen and see themselves. As a straight, Christian woman, I am not at all offended by a lesbian-centric storyline. It’s about telling the stories that are happening every day all over the world. It’s totally ok for good stories to be just that – good stories. And those stories aren’t limited to heterosexual relationships.

Maybe there wasn’t necessary anything “new” per se in Happiest Season but it was genuine and sweet. But, most importantly, the film is about loving your own story and those who are a part of it. And that’s a lesson we can all embrace. 

Happiest Season is available on Hulu now.

Child’s Play: Toy Trouble

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By Jason Thai

Child’s Play tells the story of a young boy named Andy who lives with his single mom, Karen. As a gift from his mother, Andy is introduced to Buddi, a doll with artificial intelligence sold by the “Kaslan” tech company, meant to assist customers by controlling their electronics and assisting them in their daily needs. However, unknown to Andy, his Buddi has had its limiters removed, allowing it to be fully self-aware. (For example, even though tries naming his new toy ‘Han-Solo’, Buddi changes it himself to Chucky.) Throughout the film, Chucky learns and adapts to how Andy feels and reacts to things, focused on his primary goal to make Andy happy. Eventually, this takes a dark turn as Chucky begins killing whoever has hurt Andy, believing that the best way to make him happy is to remove them from his life. As Andy realizes his ‘toy’ is hurting others, he tries to put Chucky away but he rebels, connecting to TVs, cars, drones, and even people’s hearing aids in order to get revenge on Andy and his loved ones. 

Through its examination of technology, Child’s Play was trying to portray the dangers of artificial intelligence and the havoc it can potentially cause in people’s lives. Paralleling the Google Home and Amazon Echo, Chucky can control functions in the house and assist you in your life and daily schedule. In Child’s Play, they take it one step further where the artificial intelligence can learn and adapt to who you are. Chucky is a blank slate initially, his only objective to make Andy happy. He develops his ideas of right and wrong from what he learns from Andy based on what makes him happy or unhappy. Unfortunately, Chucky also receives information that turns him into a murderer, having been exposed to television violence and Andy’s interest in scaring people as pranks. As a result, Chucky uses that information to hurt people.

However, though Chucky is obviously the film’s villain, he also comes across as innocent. Despite his actions, Chucky doesn’t know the difference between what humans consider right and wrong, and is unable to understand the value of human life or the pain and fear he causes someone by killing them. To Chucky, he is just fulfilling his only purpose: doing whatever it takes to make Andy happy. In light of this, Child’s Play also shows the potential dangers of having our lives so interconnected with technology through his ability to perfectly control his surroundings.

2018-10-02 The Kaslan Project 0043.dng

Overall, Child’s Play is an interesting modern take of the classic 1988 film by using technology as a replacement for the magic used in the original film. In doing so, the film has a more realistic take than the original, focusing on the potential evils of technology that could develop if treated improperly. Plus, the gore was a nice homage to the horror movies of the 80s and 90s, featuring over-the-top and impossible death-trap situations. As Chucky, Mark Hamill does an amazing job, playing Chucky as a newly conscious being experiencing the world with child-like wonder and naïveté.

In the end, Child’s Play does a solid job showcasing the impact—and potential dangers—of technology and the impact it has on our daily lives. More specifically, the film also examines our growing interest in artificial intelligence, an issue that we as a culture have only begun to explore. 

Child’s Play is killing the competition in theatres now.