“Emily the Criminal” Written and directed by John Patton Ford, is a crime thriller that revolves around the title character who has to pay off some student loans, which is difficult because she can’t apply for a job because of a minor criminal. record. When desperation takes over, Emily signs up for an illegal job that involves using stolen credit cards to buy several items.
Drawn to the thrill and adrenaline of shady gigs and fast cash, Emily finds herself getting more involved with Youcef and more ways to make some illegal money. Now they both decide it’s time to take their business to the next level.
Aubrey Plaza’s riveting and captivating performance along with several other talented actors and actresses including Theo Rossi, Megalyn Echikunwoke, and Gina Gershon elevates the quality of the suspenseful narrative to the next level. Additionally, the use of different locations makes you wonder where “Emily the Criminal” was shot.
Where Was Emily the Criminal Movie Filmed?
“Emily the Criminal” was filmed in California and Mexico, particularly in Los Angeles and Puerto Vallarta. The crew’s original plan was to shoot the film in the summer of 2020, but that was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Finally, the crime film’s principal photography took place in the summer of 2021, in just 21 days.
Plaza added, “It was all a challenge, but there’s something about how the spirit of the production took the same spirit of the film, and it all kind of blended together. And it felt like we were pulling off a con just when we were shooting the Emily the Criminal movie—it was like we were all thinking like Emily, making up the rules as we went along.”
California
Most of “Emily the Criminal” took place in and around Los Angeles, California’s largest city and the nation’s second most populous city. The production team is said to have used several streets and locations around the city to shoot various scenes against suitable backdrops. In August 2022, director John Patton Ford sat down with Below The Line, where he was asked to share more information about filming on location in LA.
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“We just drove around L.A., we went to a lot of sketchy places. That’s the short story. There was nothing on stage and it was all real locations, a lot of real people who didn’t even know they were in the movie, to be honest with you,” he said.
Ford added: “We were shooting in places where we couldn’t turn it off and people were just walking by and we were shooting there. It’s kind of hard to draw a line between where real life ended and the movie started…” Additionally, in the same interview, there were several questions about the car chase scene involving Aubrey and how they pulled it off.
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He revealed: “…We filmed all of this in four hours. We couldn’t afford to close the street, so we did something called an “intermittent lockdown,” which is when you get an officer to stand at an intersection and then block all passing traffic for a short period of time, like five minutes. For those 5 minutes, you have a free hand on the street, then the cops have to let traffic through, so it’s like game-on, game-off. That’s how it was.”
Mexico
Other parts of “Emily the Criminal” were also filmed on location in Puerto Vallarta, a beach resort in Jalisco, Mexico. The final scene was reportedly filmed in the city after Emily left the United States. When asked about his favorite role during the making of the film in an August 2022 interview with Knockturnal, Ford replied, “Towards the end of production, we all went to Mexico for a few days.”
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“We went to Puerto Vallarta to shoot a certain part of the movie. And that was by far the funniest part of the production. I mean it just turned into a jungle party! And it was—man, it was like a crazy fever dream that didn’t feel like reality.
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