“Emily the Criminal,” by John Patton Ford, is One job asks her to be a crook, one job treats her like a crook, and one job pays so little it’s essentially stealing from her. The girl, Emily (Aubre…
This isolation gives the script an excuse to let Emily fall for her underworld boss,, a Lebanese immigrant who swears he’s just hawking stolen TVs and cars to buy his mom a fourplex apartment. We’re asked to believe thatwho seems like he’d be more at homeir crooked warehouseEmily and Youcef are united in that they’re both ambitious young people with small scale goals. Neither is out to rule the L.A. crime syndicate; they just want enough cash to feel free.
Here, people like them without good options live lives that are already behind invisible bars. To, choosing crime can be suspenseful — when things get tense, Nathan Halpern’s music takes on the tempo of a nervous heartbeat — but it’s not necessarily wrong if the audience can be convinced that Emily is simply defending her own right to survive.