Emily (Aubrey Plaza, Ingrid Goes West, Black Bear) is saddled with student debt and locked out of the job market due to a minor criminal record.

Desperate for income, she takes a shady gig as a “dummy shopper,” buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by a handsome and charismatic middleman named Youcef (Theo Rossi, Sons of Anarchy), who becomes her mentor. Faced with a series of dead-end job interviews, Emily soon finds herself seduced by the quick cash and illicit thrills of black-market capitalism, and increasingly interested in Youcef, on a more than professional basis. Together, they hatch a plan to bring their business to the next level in Los Angeles and events begin to take on a life of their own, leading to an unexpected outcome.

Emily the Criminal is mostly as straightforward as its title, a suspenseful taut thriller about how Emily becomes more adept at gaming the system and rises in confidence as she falls deeper into a criminal underworld. Aubrey Plaza, with her riveting lead performance, provides a fascinating character study in a drama that is fiercely critical of the capitalist society we live in.