Directing: B+
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

If you’re here to criticize Finding Emily because of its predictable, formulaic writing, then you need to read the room. Get out of here! Find some other vibe to kill, because you’re missing the point.

And that point? It’s the genre: romantic comedies. They either work for you or they don’t, and the truth is, even within the basic rules of the genre, most romantic comedies are crap. Just google “best romantic comedies of the 21st century” and you’ll find lists that are, in the aggregate, a bit pathetic. Is Finding Emily better than, say, Bridget Jones’s Diary? I’m going to sound ridiculous to many when I say yes, it is. I certainly suspect it’ll age better over time, even if it is very much of its time. Is it the best romantic comedy since Four Weddings and a Funeral? Only time will truly tell, but: maybe!

Finding Emily does have its imperfections, even if they largely lend themselves to its ample charms. Spike Fearn is utterly adorable as the lovesick Owen, and his performance is superb. I also love how Rachel Hirons’s script flips the usual positions of the two leads, here making the woman (a charming Angourie Rice, who the criminally few who saw The Nice Guys might recognize as the 13-year-old girl from that 10-year-old movie) the one who makes the big mistakes and has to offer all the grand apologies. That said, as adorable and sweet as Owen is, he’s a little too perfect. He’s just a little naive, sweetly making his way through life and having no inkling that someone is taking advantage of him.

Owen meets a girl at the club at which he works as a sound engineer, in the opening sequence—the Emily of the title, or at least one of them. They connect, they have easy conversation, and when she has to rush off with her friends to the next thing that night, she leaves Owen her phone number, but it’s missing a digit. Along comes another Emily (also, we know instantly, of the title), this one being the Angourie Rice Emily, who is an American student at this unnamed Manchester university. She’s looking for a subject for her dissertation, someone she can use to make a strong case for how “romantic attachment” leads to self-sabotage, and she offers to help him find this Emily. He winds up sending an email to the more than 300 Emilys who go to this school (that seems like a lot), and hijinks ensues, along with predictably desperate secrets and misunderstandings, and we see where this is all going a mile away.

And I don’t care how far away we can see it! I had a blast watching this movie, and it even moved me, if not to tears, then to misty-eyes by the end. It’s worth noting that many of the movies on those lists of “best romantic comedies” really stretch the definition of comedy; some even include movies like Materialists, which I was surprisingly taken with, but it’s not a comedy. But Finding Emily? This is a movie that will actually make you laugh. What a refreshing change!

It’s also, evidently, an example of a “Gen Z romantic comedy,” which is definitionally true given that Angourie Rice and Spike Fearn are both 25. I also found it refreshing to see such a well-made movie about people this young; the kids need quality too, don’t they? Where else are they going to find light, fun movies this good about people in their own generation? (Not that I have a clue what the kids are doing these days or what they think of as high quality. I’m 50.)

If I had any real complaint about Finding Emily, it’s the Manchester accents. Rice is actually Australian but plays an American student whose visa is on the line with her dissertation, and half the time she was the only person I fully understood. You might do well to find a showtime with closed captions included. I’d say you could wait until it’s on a streamer where you can also turn on the captions, but this movie deserves the same success as, say, My Big Fat Greek Wedding—even though we all know it won’t get it; we don’t live in that world anymore. Oh wait, I also want to complain about Minnie Driver as Dean Watkinson. There isn’t enough of her! Why do people keep under-using this excellent actor?

Anyway, Finding Emily gives you everything you want from it and more—genuinely effective humor, heart, romance, and precisely the story beats you expect from a romantic comedy. Formula works because that’s what it does. It treats ideas like toxic masculinity with a light hand but without trivializing it; conversely, it does also follow the unfortunate formula of centering Whiteness in its main characters while self-consciously diversifying its supporting cast. I’m not sure it’s worth holding a grudge against it for that, but it’s certainly worth mentioning. Whether the ample charms to be found here can transcend its smattering of imperfections over time may long remain to be seen, but for now, British director Alicia MacDonald has offered up something that’s impossible to resist, and will have you leaving the theater with a pep in your step.

*The kids are not just all right, they’re delightful.*

Overall: B+