Director Alicia MacDonald’s terrific new comedy, Finding Emily, deconstructs the idea of searching for true love and puts it back together again in a thought-provoking and entertaining way.
This film stars Spike Fearn as a young man named Owen. He works an odd job at a local university, and meets a nice girl (played by Sadie Soverall) at a bar one night. He proceeds to get her to enter her phone number into his cell phone.
When Owen goes to call her, he realizes he’s one number short on the telephone number. Owen becomes obsessed with finding her again because he thinks she may be the only one he’s ever really connected with,romantically speaking. Her name is Emily, or, at least that’s what he heard it is; hence the movie’s title.
When Owen goes to the university “Emily” supposedly attends looking for her, he’s given a referral by a student to find a girl whose name is Emily Raine (Angourie Rice). She’s definitely not the girl he was looking for, but she becomes consumed with the idea that Owen is looking for this girl he only met once.
Emily Raine is working on a project for one of her classes that could lead to a high-paying career for herself. This project is a study of how romantic love is not a necessity for someone who is a responsible adult in the world. She soon befriends Owen and uses him as a test subject for her final class project.
Since Emily Raine puts together a list of all the girls with the name Emily who currently attend the school, Owen decides to send out an email blast asking for the girl he met at the bar to come forward.
Unfortunately, every Emily at the university is cc’d on the email by accident, thus creating a media blitz that spirals out of control.
Minnie Driver plays the college’s Dean Watkinson. Soon, the group of girls with the name Emily at the school seek Watkinson out to do something about this male employee, who, unwillingly, invades their lives through email.
When Owen’s true identity is discovered, things get even worse for everyone involved, especially Emily Raine, because she starts to fall for Owen even though she has been betraying his trust for her school project.
Chemistry between Spike Fearn and Angourie Rice is excellently conveyed by the performers at hand as the characters start off as friends, and begin to discover fun things about one another. There is magic on-screen at all times they’re together, which is a testament to the movie’s ability to command the viewer’s interest throughout, mostly due to the acting.
Finding Emily is a tearjerker, too. It’s an emotional look at how guys can be perceived as creeps and weirdos for following their heart. Consequently, the film shows the dangers and false outcomes of following one’s heart too much for someone whom one hardly knows.
In the final analysis, Finding Emily is quite moving despite its high number of laughs that derive from the awkward, to say the least, premise. It’s easy to care about these characters and want to see them achieve the goals they set out to accomplish.
If Rice and Fearn weren’t so wonderful together, the movie could have self-destructed. However, the chemistry between the lead performers keeps the movie flowing so well that one may wish it never ended.
There is a minor flaw in that the film never tells us why the phone number the girl gave Owen was missing a digit.
Consequently, there are scenes that feature a podcast in the movie, and those sequences lead to a final scenario set in the classroom, where Emily Raine is about to give her presentation on what she’s learned through her “research.” This part of the movie is especially touching and exciting to behold.
Also, the movie never cops-out on having Owen actually discover the girl he thinks he loves. In fact, those late scenes are authentic and satisfactory, to say the least.
Stay tuned during the end credits for more fun and a major plot development that will put a smile on viewers’ faces. Finding Emily offers no shortage of fun, emotions and true blue romance; thus it is most highly recommended.
Finding Emily is now playing, only in theaters!
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Thomas Duffy
Thomas Duffy is a Critics Choice member who has written film reviews for most of his life, starting at age 11 when he crafted his first full length movie critique on the film, "Roxanne," a Cyrano story featuring Steve Martin. As a result of that review and other movie obsessive writing, Thomas was awarded a creative writing award in sixth grade. Thomas is the proud author of nine books, including two highly acclaimed novels, "To Never Know" and "Social Work." Thomas can be found on X (formerly known as Twitter) or at a New York City movie theater watching the latest hit or independent movie. You can also run into him at Tribeca or at the New York Film Festival.