By all definitions Aubrey Plaza is a bona fide indie star, over the years she has been a regular at the Sundance Film Festival. The decade-long impressive run began in 2012 with the sci-fi romantic comedy Safety Not Guaranteed and continued every couple of years with 2014’s Life After Beth, 2017’s Ingrid Goes West, and 2020s Black Bear. In her latest film Emily The Criminal, Plaza puts in one of her best performances alongside Theo Rossi as a debt-saddled young man seeking a way out of her dire circumstance.
Written and directed by John Patton Ford, Emily the Criminal is a crime drama film that centers around the life of a young Art school dropout and aspiring painter who is toiling to pay off a suffocating student debt she amassed during her time in art school. Shut out of decent jobs due to a past run-in with the law when she was charged with assaulting a former boyfriend, Emily resorts to a life of crime to survive in a world that increasingly looks unfair to her. Emily The Criminal is John Patton Ford’s feature directorial debut with Aubrey Plaza, Tyler Davidson, and Drew Sykes as producers. Scheduled to be released in the United States on August 12, 2022, here's a run down of all the characters and cast in the film.
Here's the official trailer for Emily the Criminal.
Aubrey Plaza as Emily Benetto
Emily is a young woman who is burdened with a $70,000 college debt for an Arts Degree she abandoned halfway. To complicate matters further, she is finding it difficult to land a decent-paying job due to her felony assault conviction. While at her catering job, a coworker tips her off about a job that would pay her $200 an hour. Eager to up her earnings, she takes the job which involves her acting as a dummy shopper.
Plaza had her breakthrough in 2009 as Daisy in Funny People directed by Judd Apatow. Her most popular performance is as April Ludgate in the sitcom Parks and Recreation from 2009 to 2015. Her other film credits include A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III, Mike, and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, The To-Do List, Happiest Season, Child's Play, and Best Sellers. She also garnered plenty of acclaim for her role as Lenny Busker in Noah Hawley's X-Men series Legion. Coming up next for Plaza, she'll be joining forces with Jason Statham and Hugh Grant in the Guy Ritchie action-comedy Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre. Plaza will also be a part of the massive ensemble for the second season of the hit HBO anthology series The White Lotus.
Theo Rossi as Youcef
Youcef is a middle eastern immigrant running a credit card scam who contracts Emily initially as a dummy shopper. The partnership evolves as Emily becomes better on the job and develops an enlarged appetite for the underworld. He slowly increases her scope of involvement until she graduates into a full-fledged ally in crime.
Rossi’s riveting performance alongside Plaza is one of the highlights of this film. Rossi’s best work is as Hernan ‘Shades’ Alvarez in Marvel’s Luke Cage, and as an intelligence officer Juan Carlos ‘Juice’ Ortiz in FX’s Sons of Anarchy. His other film credits include Army of the Dead, When the Bough Breaks, and Ghosts of War.
Megalyn Echikunwoke as Liz
Emily’s high-achieving college friend whose success in a thriving ad agency partly fuels Emily’s desire to land a corporate job. She’s living Emily’s dream. Her job takes her to glamorous places like Portugal and most importantly, she's not getting choked by student loans. She recommends Emily for a few jobs, but none ever seems to work out.
One of Echikunwoke’s earliest performances came in 2001 as Nicole Palmer, daughter of David Palmer, on the Fox series 24. She also played Lisa King in the 2018 comedy Night School. Her other film credits include A Good Day to Die Hard, An Actor Prepares, and Step Sisters.
Gina Gershon as Alice
Alice is the condescending executive at a firm Emily is seeking employment. Alice appears just in one scene, and what a scene it is. What starts as an interview degenerates into a fierce verbal exchange when Emily realizes that Alice lied about not having done a background check on her. Learning that the job was in reality an unpaid internship, Emily goes off on a tirade about the idea of not being paid for work. This exchange sets the tone for the entire movie.
Gershon had her breakthrough in the 1986 teen romantic comedy Pretty in Pink. Subsequently, she appeared in Face/Off, Five Minarets in New York, How To Make It In America, and House of Versace. Her most notable work is playing Gladys Jones on The CW teen drama series Riverdale. Gershon will also be part of the ensemble cast of Eli Roth's Borderlands, the film adaptation of the popular video game franchise.
Jonathan Avigdori as Khalil
Youcef’s cousin and colleague in crime, Khalil views Emily with suspicion from the moment she walked through the door. Though uneasy, he shows little resistance at the onset, but when Emily begins to ask for bigger involvement, Khalil doesn't hesitate to voice his opposition and displeasure at the prospect of working with her.
Born in Israel, Avigdori migrated to the US in 1999 to pursue a career in entertainment. A filmmaker and actor who started out acting in his native Israel, Avigdori played the Minister of Commerce in the political drama television series Tyrant. His other film credits include appearances on The Lincoln Lawyer, The Blacklist, and FBI.
Bernardo Badillo as Javier
After Emily's ill-fated interview with Alice, Javier is the coworker at her catering job that tips her off about a gig that would pay her $200. This vital piece of information doesn't come cheap as Emily has to pay by taking his shift. This singular act opens her up to the underworld.
Badillo holds a B.A. in Theater from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He played Frank Delgado in the drama series Chicago PD and Cheo in the crime drama television series Queen of the South. His other credits include Dead To Me, Insecure, and The Night Stalker.
Other members of the cast include Brandon Sklenar, John Billingsley, Kim Yarbrough, Kara Luiz, Janice Sonia Lee, Wesley Han, and Ben Rodgers.