Story

Owen Brompton (Spike Fearn) is a sound engineer in Manchester. One night at the student bar where he works, he meets a girl wearing fairy wings. He’s smitten and learns her name is Emily (Sadie Soverall). When Emily has to leave with her friends, Owen chases her and gets her to put her number into his phone.

The next day, after trying to contact her, Owen realises that Emily has missed a digit in her phone number. Desperate to track her down, Owen goes to her university, where he meets another Emily (Angourie Rice), a psychology student. Realising Owen is the perfect case study for her dissertation on the futility of romantic attachment, this Emily says she’ll help him find Fairy Emily.

Emily decides to document the search for Fairy Emily without Owen knowing. To boost Owen’s waning hope and save her own research, Emily gives Owen the email addresses of all 318 Emilys in the university so he can send them a message. Unfortunately, Owen messages them all in a group email, rather than BCCing, and many of them are enraged by this invasion of privacy, calling him a creep and a stalker among other things, without knowing who he is.

Dubbed the ‘email guy’, Owen decides to come out as the person who sent the email. On a livestreamed university podcast, Owen says that he hacked the email system (because he’s covering for Emily) and shares a song he wrote for Fairy Emily. His authenticity wins people over, and soon everyone is searching for Fairy Emily. Unfortunately, it all gets too much and, after losing his job, Owen is distraught.

Over the course of the search, Owen and Emily become very close. One day Owen gets a text from Fairy Emily and they meet up. It turns out that Fairy Emily’s name is Amelie. During their date, Owen realises he really wants to be with the other Emily, so, after saying goodbye to Amelie, he goes to Emily’s apartment. There, he sees all of Emily’s research with him as the case study and, stunned at her deceit and betrayal, he storms out.

In the end, will Emily’s dissertation prove that romantic attachment is futile? Or will love and romance prevail?

Themes

Romance; university life; drinking culture; social media; love; deception; self-sabotage; death of a parent

Violence

Finding Emily has some violence. For example:

• Owen pushes, shoves, jumps on and wrestles his brother during a heated argument about selling the family home.
• Emily and Owen have an argument.
• Owen is chased out of an ‘Emily Party’ by a mob of Emilys.
• Emily gets knocked into at a pub, splitting open her lip, which bleeds.
• In a kebab shop, after seeing Emily’s bloodied lip, a drunk woman charges at Owen, accusing him of domestic abuse and hurting Emily.
• In a pub, a group of women mob Owen and Amelie, who end up running away.

Sexual references

Finding Emily has some sexual references. For example:

• One scene shows a drag show in a night club. There are many people in drag.
• Owen’s actions are deemed to be sexual harassment, and he’s referred to as a paedophile.
• There are references to voyeurism.
• A character says, ‘You’re into that soft lad’.
• Owen says he flashed his coupons, referring to actual coupons. Someone says, ‘Who names a penis “coupons”?’
• A character says, ‘Bet he’s never seen a pair of tits in his life’.
• During the credits, it’s revealed that Owen’s brother and his girlfriend are pregnant.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

Finding Emily shows some use of substances. For example:

• Many scenes show people drinking in bars and nightclubs. Sometimes they drink too much.
• People drink a lot of beer in pubs.
• Holding up some cocktails, Emily excitedly says to Owen that she got them free drinks.
• People drink champagne at a graduation party where there is a ‘champagne tower’.
• Adults smoke.
• There’s a reference to making drunk phone calls and being drunk.
• There are references to ‘weed’, cocaine, drug dealing, taking a ‘chill pill’, and something being ‘like a Xanax’.

Nudity and sexual activity

Finding Emily shows some nudity and sexual activity. For example:

• Two girls are in the male toilets. One is squatting over the urinal and says, ‘Don’t mind me. I like to pee standing up’. Owen says he sometimes likes to pee sitting down.
• Owen is seen in his bedroom without a top on.
• Owen walks in on his brother’s girlfriend straddling his brother in a chair. She gets up and does up her top.
• Emily talks to her friend while her friend is in the bath. Bath bubbles conceal any nudity.
• Owen and Emily kiss.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in Finding Emily: Ben Shaws soft drink, TikTok and Facebook.

Coarse language

Finding Emily has some coarse language.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Finding Emily is a warm-hearted romcom, set in a university campus in Manchester. Featuring a stand-out performance by Australian actress Angourie Rice, the movie highlights the value of meaningful, albeit often messy, human connections.

Finding Emily is likely to appeal to Gen Z and millennial audiences, as well as lovers of romantic comedies. Because of its coarse language and themes, it’s best suited to viewers aged 16 years or older. We recommend parental guidance for children aged 13-15 years.

These are the main messages from Finding Emily:

• Love can be messy and irrational, but it’s worth the risk
• Authenticity is more important than polished performance – for example, the way that many people present themselves on social media.

Values in Finding Emily that you could reinforce with your children include genuineness, sincerity, hope, friendship, honesty, vulnerability and optimism.

Finding Emily could also give you the chance to talk with your children about real-life questions and issues like the following:

• Emily is dishonest and forges Owen’s signature for her ethics approval. How could she have done things differently? In real life, what would be the consequences of her action?
• Owen’s situation goes viral on social media and he has to deal with backlash from strangers. Has something like this ever happened to you? Or have you accidentally sent something online that you didn’t mean to? What did you or could you do to deal with it?