My Name Is Emily

Simon Fitzmaurice beyond his disability directed his last movie sadly sitting on a chair which is hard to go unnoticed and you can see little piece of heartfelt seen of pure emotion. This movie is definitely a 'Feel Good' movie. Story take turn and some seen are just not what you want or unnecessary but this story strictly tell us we wont find meaning in everything and sometime things happen randomly and you could either take little joy and little pain to make up memories to remember loved ones by. This movie is kind a like that, as if someone opened a bag of memories and it came bursting out everywhere and you trying to gather up all the pieces even the sad and painful bits. Direction and production work is amazing for an independent artist file which i think deserves a little more appreciation. At the end it was really a sense of calming to hear Evanna Lynch's voice portraying a disturbed teen. My take from it was don't find meaning in every film, sometime they're just stories of people living their life as best as they can. And that is commendable.

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.

I'm not aware of Fitzmaurice's cultural background: judging his first feature film on the basis of the level of theoretical depth that it (apparently) expresses would be consequently unfair. But "My name is Emily" - as far as we know - is one of the most elegant examples of complex theoretic inclusions within a classic drama movie format.

Film language is quite complex with its multimedia semiotics: it's hard to find mainstream films with both an attention to deep conceptual problems and some "watchability" value (no, I wouldn't consider Matrix an example...). This is of course not due to the lack of great writers/directors but to the nature of the language itself which is in some sense too rich, redundant and ambiguous: life-like.

So here we have a sort of meta-allegory of Plato's cavern allegory (and its social consequences) which doesn't sound boring or book-like, involves likable characters and has a solid plot. Furthermore photography depicts charming corners of Ireland and the actors did an honest job.

However all in all the film feels weak, not enough daring (and caring) and with too many unnecessary minutes here and there: lots and lots of details that sound rushed or amateurish.

The writer (and director) has for sure something interesting to say but despite its merits "My name is Emily" is quite forgettable.

This movie is a pile of attemptedly profound and meaningful statements that feel like they should culminate to create a big heartfelt message but actually just come down as a heap of confusingly pseudo-poetic tripe. There are so many plot holes in this movie, from Emily's endless wardrobe while on the run with a small bag to the fact that her foster parents don't seem to call the social workers and seek to find her, despite Emily's claims that they will. That's just forgotten. The narration on Evanna lynch's Part is excessively wordy without meaning anything, and her acting is even worse. She quite possibly ruins the movie with it, however I'm not sure there is much good outside that. Why did this movie win any awards?