Finding Emily | Film Review (2.5*): Disappointingly, This Rom-Com Didn’t Live Up To It’s Trailer.

A One Mann’s Movies review of “Finding Emily”. (2026, 2.5*, 12A).

Sometimes a trailer really makes me want to see an upcoming film and this was one of them. But, sadly, although the concept of the film was quite cute, the execution left me underwhelmed.

One Mann’s Movies Rating:

Plot:

Student Union bar-worker Owen (Spike Fearn) meets the girl of his dreams, Emily (Sadie Soverall) dressed as a fairy, and the two seem to hit it off really well. But the next morning he finds that the phone number he’s given him is a digit short. He starts a campaign to find her…. but there are an awful lot of Emily’s studying at Manchester University.

Certification:

UK: 12A; US: NR. (From the BBFC website: “Moderate sex references, drug references, infrequent strong language”. I think this sails pretty close to the wind in terms of a 15 certificate: at one point, which the BBFC don’t seem to have mentioned, Owen enters a room to find his (clothed) brother’s girlfriend riding his brother, cowgirl, on the sofa.)

Talent:

Starring: Angourie Rice, Spike Fearn, Minnie Driver, Sadie Soverall, Clara Lioe, Phil Wang, Luke Una, Amber Grappy, Fiona Allen, Anthony J. Abraham, Jack Riddiford, Isabella Laughland, Timothy Innes, Prasanna Puwanarajah.

Directed by: Alicia MacDonald.

Written by: Rachel Hirons.

Running Time: 1h 51m.

Review:

Positives:

• The concept of a missing digit and a frantic search for Emily is a good one. The script weaves in the concept of him being ‘deliberately dumped’ (Emily missed off the digit deliberately); stalking; data protection (appalling!); and toxic masculinity.
• The two leads – Spike Fearn and Angourie Rice – are personable and play their parts well. Fearn in particular is perfect as the nerdy disaffected teen, bumping along with political incorrectness in a tricky world. Angourie Rice was soooo impressive as the young daughter in “The Nice Guys” but hasn’t really found a movie vehicle to shine in since: this is at least a lead, but will, I think, be quickly forgotten.
• There are some nice directorial touches in the film by debut-feature-director Alicia MacDonald. At one point of conflict, a song is played loudly almost drowning-out all of the dialogue in the discussions going on in the background. I liked this confidence.
• The film neatly (I think) shows the life of a student at Manchester Uni: the drinking; the gigs; the fun of those three years of mad escapism.
• The end-titles have a fun segment of Owen recreating the famous music video by the Verve of “Bittersweet Symphony”, where Richard Ashcroft walks continuously down an urban street.

Negatives:

• While I thought Owen’s quest was fun and engaging, I never once believed in the whole psychology-research angle of Emily Raine (Angourie Rice). The whole thing stank of ‘plot device’.
• Right down to the Richard Curtis-style ‘press conference’ at the end, you could tell exactly where the plot would end up: but isn’t that always the case in rom-coms?
• Many of the peripheral characters never quite ‘clicked’ for me: the relationship between Owen and his brother Matt (Jack Riddiford) only really rang true for me went they goofed around to a song in the car. (Although Matt’s girlfriend Freya (Isabella Laughland) gave a good performance and was well-written as the caring and sharing provider of advice.); the depressed professor Westlake (Prasanna Puwanarajah) and Owen’s boss (‘Pervy Martin’, Phil Wang) failed to raise a smile; Emily R.’s crush Tristan (Timothy Innes) seemed to be bizarrely written and I couldn’t work out whether he was trying to score with her again or just piss her off.
• Over the music video end-titles there are “what the characters did next” captions. But as the music video is inset on only half the screen and as the captions are small, wordy and disappear quickly, I seldom had chance to understand what they said. Crucially, I think as a measure of my emotional engagement with the characters in the film, I didn’t really care to know! (The Illustrious Mrs Movie Mann felt the same: “I couldn’t be bothered… the music video was fun but I just wanted to get out of there”!)

Summary Thoughts:

I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I’m not in the right demographic to fully buy into a film about present-day student life. (But I was a student once!) In this case, this film didn’t really float my boat, but my Flickering Dreams co-host Emma Sewell made it her Film of the Month in the recent podcast (coming soon). And at the time of writing, it has a respectable IMDB score of 7.1, so lots of you out there must be enjoying it.

The film will be released in the US in late August and this website provides information on release dates in other countries.

Where to watch?

Trailer:

The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGuJf70S0s.

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