Movie Review: My Name is Emily

Movie Review: My Name is Emily

Previously released at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2015 and in Ireland in 2016, the Irish independent drama film My Name is Emily stars Evanna Lynch (from the “Harry Potter” film series) and George Webster (from the TV series “Versailles”).

The film follows a girl, Emily (Lynch), in Dublin, Ireland who has stood out amongst her peers for her unique and special way of looking at things.

With Emily’s mother dead, her father becomes her rock.


As Emily and her father confide in each other, the two develop a saying that forever changes their way of thinking – “A fact is a point of view.”

However, because of Emily’s father’s flexible way of thinking, he is put in a psychiatric hospital for talking to plants and wandering the streets naked.

With her father in a mental institution, Emily lives with her relatives, moving from family to family until being taken in by a foster family.

Emily and Arden

Sick of her dull teenage life, Emily convinces Arden (Webster), a gawking admirer and classmate, to adventure with her to Northern Ireland to break her father out of a psychiatric hospital.

Along the way, Arden and Emily develop an awkward romantic relationship, lacking that sp
ecial spark of chemistry. However, the awkwardness is cute and accurately portrays interactions between teenage lovers.

Essentially, My Name is Emily had many holes and flaws, leaving seemingly essential character development scenes out in the plot. If the actors were more experienced (even though Lynch played an amazing role of Luna Lovegood in the last four “Harry Potter” films), the sublime story line would have flowed much more smoothly.  With those two changes, the film would have undoubtedly been a hit amongst audiences and award shows.

At the same time, I can not say the two actors did not share cute, witty, and clever moments that made you smile; the moments, however, just came at weird and unprecedented times, with the story immediately moving on and not following the previous quality of the script.

Two positive characteristics of the film include its easy-on-the-eyes cinematography, with glowing Ireland coastlines and farmlands, and its subtle but unique mixture of pop and folk music.

In the end, if you are a fan of foreign independent films, then the movie is worth watching.

The movie is out now in select theaters.