My Name Is Emily
In the present, she often reflects on her happy earlier childhood (Millie Donnelly, Hunter and Sadie Fitzmaurice, Sarah Minto) with her father, her unconventional home education with him and how he changed dramatically after the death of her mother, also named Emily (Mullins) on the night of her birthday in a car accident, an event that led to his mental breakdown; he became obsessed with writing, refusing to eat and sleep and was preoccupied with the concept that humans and the surrounding universe, such as a blade of grass, shared the same molecules.Emily is enrolled in a new secondary school and quickly attracts the attention of an awkward half-Irish, half-English classmate Arden (Webster) who is unrequitedly smitten with her, though she is initially standoffish and uninterested in his attempts of a relationship.Contrarily, Emily is outcast by her teachers and bullied by her peers (Hughes) for her oddity and intellectual arrogance, such as refusing to introduce herself on her first day and rebelling against an assignment to dissect a Wordsworth poem "Ode on Intimations of Immortality" for its obvious sexual message.The next morning, she meets Arden at his home during a confrontation with his strict, physically abusive father (Conlon) and sensitive, submissive mother (White) and pleads for him to help her travel to the psychiatric institution and rescue Robert.Following this incident, Emily grows paranoid of authority, believing they will attempt to stop her from reaching her destination and at one point, orders Arden to drive away from a curious Guard (Ó Héalai) questioning them for IDs.When Arden is beaten in an outnumbered fight and runs towards the car for help, Emily is left vulnerable inside the tent where she is threatened to be raped by the gang's leader, telling him coldly, "Fuck off.""[21] Donald Clarke of The Irish Times awards the film four out of five stars, calling it "a strange, but easily accessible beast that deserves to do well," the photography "elegant" and Smiley's performance "unbeatable" whereas Lynch "has an angular eccentricity that suits the role perfectly" and Webster "wields the sort of cheekbones from which mainstream careers are launched."[23] Michael Lee from Film Ireland writes: "Right off the bat, writer/director Simon Fitzmaurice masterfully invites us inside Emily’s head, and sets up an unquestionably potent relationship with her and the audience.He compliments the characterizations, expressing that the two leads "give their characters an aching awkwardness, so that we can't quite tell if Emily is rebuffing [Arden's] little kindnesses/romantic entreaties" where "the winsome Lynch, narrating her story [...] makes a heroine worth knowing and following to the ends of Ireland, with or without a wand" and credits the film in general as "meditative" and "writerly;" the director "fills the soundtrack with Emily's narration [...] Images of the teen holding herself under water as she ponders the universe (And suicide?)[26] Ben O'Gorman of Galway Advertiser singles out the performances, calling them "wonderful": Evanna Lynch "gives Emily a lightness and ethereal quality, but is still a commanding lead, showing her inner pain with a subtlety beyond her years.Meet-cutes, flashbacks to happier days, the boy's wonder and befuddlement at this damaged Manic Pixie, sappy sub-Sarah McLachlan music cues, and a rainbow in the morning over the tent where Emily and Arden shared the night—this is strictly straight-to-video material.[28] Serena Donadoni of Village Voice cites the film as "melancholy" with an often dreary tone, especially seen in the protagonist's early contemplation of suicide by drowning due to severe clinical depression, adding that director Fizmaurice's "characters shut down emotionally after trauma, but [he] offers them a path to emerge from isolation.Despite certain awarding aspects, such as heavy-handed emotion and "poetic phraseology," the film "never comes to satisfying fruition, perhaps as a consequence of Emily’s obsession with the past and how profoundly her father’s intellect and temperament has affected her personality.Though travelogue beauty of rolling Irish hills and lakes comes alive through DP Seamus Deasy’s lens, the second act slogs through frisky getting-to-know-you sessions between Emily and Arden, and contrived situations," noting that the relationship between the two budding teens never really feels developed.He writes of the performances: "Lynch's Emily is a pleasingly complex lass — wise in the ways of the world thanks to her father's tutelage, yet naive enough to believe that sheer force of will can transform even the knottiest circumstances."[31] Jeannette Catsoulis of The New York Times writes: "[S]lipping from enchanting to trite, magical to indulgent with some regularity," the "beautifully warm performances and Seamus Deasy’s easy-on-the-eyes cinematography" may be enough to win over audiences despite its flaws.Of the musical score, he cites: "Fitzmaurice has a good ear for picking the right song to help set the mood, although at times you’re reminded how much better Sing Street director John Carney is at this sort of thing."Lynch, who played the charmingly abstracted Luna Lovegood in some of the Harry Potter pictures, has grown into a young woman who looks like a rougher-edged Saoirse Ronan, and she brings a gritty conviction to the antisocial tendencies that Emily cultivates after her beloved dad."[...] [O]ne aspect of this film for which I have unqualified enthusiasm is the way [he] and his cinematographer Seamus Deasy shoot the various Irish locations, and how they place the characters therein; the effect is often beautifully picturesque without being in the least bit touristy.