My Name Is Emily

Excellent acting and a story that can happen to any of us.

Wordsworth abandoned the woman he loved because he couldn't stand up to the public opinions, conservatives and morality police of his day. Emily, an insightful teenager in the present day, does not want to be in pain like he was. Her motto, like that of her father, is that if you hide from death, you hide from life. Because of Emily's uncommon insight and wisdom, she is isolated from her classmates. She is labeled as a freak. So she doesn't have much to lose by leaving them. With the help a similarly isolated young man, Emily goes on a quest to find answers regarding the forced transfer of her beloved father to a mental institution.

The young pair travels through the countryside, camps along seashores and beneath the stars, and beholds rainbows. The film is a tad predictable and could be more powerful and better acted and organized, yet despite such drawbacks it has a powerful story. This, the story, weighs most heavily for me when I rate films. I just love Emily's philosophy about living life to its fullest, or, as Emily puts it, "life happens fast, like mountains that appear in the background, and suddenly you are in them." Seen at the Toronto International Film Festival 2015.

Emily (Evanna Lynch) feels lost in the world. After her mother's death, her father Robert (Michael Smiley) deteriorated mentally and forced into an institution. Emily was placed in foster care. In the new school, teachers keep asking, "What is wrong with you?" The kids think she's weird except Arden (George Webster) who is head over heels for her. It's her birthday and the expected card from her father has not arrived. She enlists Arden in her mission to save her father.

Evanna Lynch is most well-known as Harry Potter's Luna Lovegood. This one is a similar flighty, ethereal character. She is quite compelling playing this type of role and has a certain magnetic charisma. George Webster is a relative newcomer and presents a very appealing actor. Most of this works well as a teen romance and road trip. At a certain point, the story struggles to do something more than the simple formula. The father's story could have been more emotional. For all the possibilities, the danger to him fizzles. It becomes something interesting about the father daughter relationship but it could have been more dramatic. Its potential is not fully realized but it's good nevertheless.

There's a poetry to My Name is Emily. Not just in the words - it permeates the imagery and music as well. That should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Simon Fitzmaurice's work - his short films won all around them, lauded as lyrical and beautiful. His stream-of-consciousness film-making evokes a response on myriad levels - visually, musically, emotionally - and My Name is Emily succeeds on all fronts.

Emily, played beautifully by Evanna Lynch, is a troubled soul - deep and considered and stubbornly beyond conformity. She is wounded, armored and iron-strong. Arden, played with great charm by newcomer George Webster, is similarly bruised, but meets his own challenges with an infectious wit and enthusiasm. He hides his own pain under bravado, to a degree, and his inherent optimism and seize-the-day attitude are a perfect counterpoint to Emily's initial introspection. Their growth as characters as they journey across Ireland builds in an organic and believable way, gradually revealing themselves to each other, and in turn, the audience.

To call this movie a road trip is a little reductive - it is, for all intents and purposes, but the journey Simon so wonderfully evokes is through an emotional landscape as well as a physical one.

Parents loom large for both these characters, in different ways. Emily's father Robert is written across every aspect of her life. Their history together has forged her, left her vulnerable, searching for answers. Michael Smiley delivers a nuanced and powerful performance as Robert - a broken man, gradually remade through love and forgiveness.

Simon finds humor and pathos throughout, delicately balanced against themes of loss and redemption. He adds richness and texture in deft strokes, letting peripheral characters shine in fleeting moments - Arden's Granny, full of wit and wisdom, Emily's foster parents, crippled by their earnest middle-class nicety.

Emily's pain and loss simmer, fathoms deep, etched across every subtle expression. Lynch plays it flat at first, closed and impenetrable, but gradually opens up as the movie progresses. It's wonderful to see Emily start to smile and laugh, to watch her being freed as Arden helps her come out of herself, out of her pain. My Name is Emily is a poem about love and loss, darkness and light and everything in between.

This movie won't be from everyone, but it is for me. Evanna Lynch recently almost won Dancing with the Stars. She was robbed by the way, but I digress. After watching her dance, I was intrigued to see what she's done since her Harry Potter days. I found "I Am Emily." I realized I saw this film a few years ago. I decided to watch again. As I was viewing this film, I thought that this is the kind of project I would like to be involved in one day. It was beautifully shot in Ireland. It was something unusual that totally took me to a different world for an hour and forty minutes. As Emily's dad says in the movie, "it's OK to be weird". It was definitely OK that this movie was weird and unusual. I found myself mesmerized by Lynch's character. George Webster also had a very strong performance. Without giving away spoilers, I will just say I loved the decisions his character made in this film. Evanna dedicated one of her dances in Dancing with the Stars to the director Simon Fitzmaurice who passed away from Lou Gehrig's disease. I will search for more of his films, because he really created something special with "I am Emily". It seems like the story was written just for Evanna Lynch. She is quirky, but something about her hits you like electricity (as her boyfriend described in the film several times.). Some may say it moved slowly like the old car they drove on their road trip, but it was just right for me. It was filled with emotion and tremendous performances. I am only giving 9 stars, since I can understand that this film may not be for everyone. If I was recommending it just for my tastes, I would give it an 11.