Finding Emily Review

Finding Emily is a university-set romcom that sees a young man navigate the perils of finding love and modern uni life.

Owen Bromptom (Spike Fearn) is a sound engineer who works at Manchester City University. He meets a girl called Emily (Sadie Soverall) and the pair have an instant connection. Sadly, for Owen, he got the wrong number, so he goes on a quest to find his dream girl. Owen’s journey sees him cross paths with Emily Raine (Angourie Rice), a psychology student who’s about to write her dissertation about how love causes psychosis. The American student offers to help Owen because she sees him as the perfect case study.

Romcoms have slowly been making a cinematic comeback. Anyone But You was a big hit at the tail end of 2023, the fourth Bridget Jones movie performed well in the UK and overseas, and even A24 got into the romcom game with the comedy-drama Materialists. Finding Emily was produced by Working Title Films, a company that made its name by making romcoms like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones’s Diary.

Finding Emily did have a unique selling point by focusing on younger characters, something that’s rare in the modern romcom landscape. Rice gives the film some star power since she was in The Nice Girls, the Mean Girls remake, and the Black Mirror episode “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too”, and Fearn is a rising star, having appeared in Aftersun and Alien: Romulus. Although it was set at a university, Finding Emily ended up being an overly formulaic film. It’s a film where audiences can predict the story and plot points before seeing the film. A boy falls for a girl, but the boy can’t find the girl, so he ends up teaming up with another girl, and the boy and the second girl fall for each other, but a ticking time bomb threatens the new relationship.

Being formulaic isn’t a death nail; there have been plenty of films that are enjoyable even if they stick to a template. I enjoy the Rocky series, and the sequels tell similar stories. Sadly, Finding Emily didn’t have much to offer. The comedy was fairly weak; the joke I found the funniest was Emily saying the case study could be her Stanford Prison Experiment.

The main characters were both problematic. Owen was obsessive to the point that he could be accused of stalking. He put up notices around the university and hung around the SU in the hope that Fairy Emily would reappear. Owen created an idealised version of Fairy Emily in his head despite only spending 20 minutes together. Finding Emily ended up feeling like a companion piece to Obsession, since both films were about male infatuation. Emily wanted to prove that love caused psychosis because she had already experienced it. She fell for another student who only wanted a casual relationship. Emily broke basic scientific ethics so she could prove her hypothesis. Rice has been building up roles where she plays seemingly nice characters who were actually more selfish and sinister.

The film acknowledges that the university culture has changed. Students were more sensitive, leading to more social outrage. Owen’s mass email to all the Emilys at the uni led to a mixture of reactions. The head of the Student Union, Emily Thewlis (Kat Ronney), leads a campaign to expose and ruin Owen. That character came across as a caricature SJW designed by outrage YouTubers. Finding Emily was made in the post #MeToo era, and male behaviour has been placed under greater scrutiny, leading to more misunderstandings.

There were some decent aspects to the film. There was a great emphasis on the Manchester setting, and it was great to see the city have a chance to shine. Owen was a working-class lad who lived in a terrace house. He was still grieving over his mother and needed to keep his job so he could afford to keep the family home. Minnie Driver had a small supporting role, and she made an impact as the dean of the university who begrudgingly has to meet the students. Finding Emily served as Alicia MacDonald’s feature film debut, having mostly worked as a TV director. She was able to bring some moments of flash to the film, like when Owen discovered he created a group chat for all the Emilys, and TikTok videos were used to show how much Owen’s quest became a social media phenomenon. The TikTok videos were similar to the Mean Girls musical movie.

As a romantic cynic, Finding Emily failed to win me over. It provided some titters and moments of style, but it was hard to get over the formulaic screenplay and dodgy character actions.