Warning: This story contains spoilers for “Finding Emily”
“Finding Emily” takes the classic romantic-comedy format and rejuvenates it with a story that pokes fun at Gen Z and the current, chaotic state of modern dating.
The romantic comedy is set at the fictional Manchester City University in the lively English town. Owen, played by Spike Fearn, works as a sound engineer at the student union bar. One night, he bumps into, literally, a student named Emily (Sadie Soverall). Their adorable meet-cute turns into an evening of flirting about reusable straws and music. They have a connection and Owen gets her number before she hurries off. But the next day, Owen realizes that the number is missing a digit. Determined to find her, he teams up with an American psychology student also named Emily, played by Angourie Rice, to track her down. However, Rice’s Emily is secretly using the hopeless romantic as the subject of her case study about love being rooted in madness.
During his campus-wide search, Owen’s efforts go viral, with students there and abroad all weighing in on whether he has good intentions or is simply a persistent creep. Director Alicia MacDonald tells TODAY.com that the debate is what drew her to the film.
“I really loved that it had something to say,” she says about “Finding Emily,” which was released in U.K. cinemas in May and hits theaters in the U.S. Aug. 28. “It wasn’t just two people falling in love and there being chaos. It had something to say about what it is to be a romantic in this day and age and how complicated it is. That protest, cancel culture, gender, politics element was really interesting to me.”
MacDonald shares that she has always been a fan of satire and how it pairs so well with comedy. But, she notes that sometimes the two can clash and “alienate” audiences, which makes nailing the tone a challenge.
With “Finding Emily,” she accepted that challenge and used satire to examine tropes in past rom-coms.
“Those old rom-coms that had those grand gestures that we held up as iconic behavior — now today it’s, like, ‘Is that OK?’” she says about how some films have aged in our modern zeitgeist. “So l really liked that big question, as well as trying to balance in a coming-of-age element, which is something that I pulled out a lot more (from the script).”
“Finding Emily” leans into the university setting, introducing audiences to a variety of characters and their backgrounds, which influences how they view love.
“I hadn’t read anything that seemed to be interrogating how we love today,” she adds.
Below, she describes the perfect recipe for a rom-com and breaks down some of the film’s funniest and sweet moments, while also sharing how TikTok and more Gen Z fascinations were incorporated. Plus, she reveals her thoughts on fans telling her “rom-coms are so back” thanks to “Finding Emily.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
In rom-coms, it feels like the setting acts as another character along with the two main leads. What role did Manchester play in this film and why was it so important to have that be the setting?
It was set there from the beginning. The writer (Rachel Hirons) is from Manchester. For me, it was such a big pull because so few films are set there, definitely not comedies. It’s such an amazing city. It has this incredible history of science and politics … They obviously have two wildly famous football teams, and the fashion is really cool. The music, of course, the music. And it all just radiates out of the city. It was such an exciting place to be. I lived there for six months and it felt so cool to put this city on screen which hadn’t been put on the screen before.
You mentioned the music. How involved were you with the different needle drops that are in this film?
Oh, hugely involved! They’re all from my brain, one way or another. I’ve been making this playlist since I got the job. I felt a real responsibility to showcase Manchester bands, but not just the old, iconic ones. There were so many amazing new bands coming out of Manchester, and so much good music and different kinds of music. I was listening to so much and going to so many gigs. My music supervisor (Iain Cooke) was sending stuff, and Phil (Hignett), my editor, was making his own playlist. It was dictated by the story and what was happening, but I also really wanted a real rhythm and a pace to the film, so we’d feel kind of carried along with it.
One of the scenes where the music definitely stands out the most is the car scene with Matt (Jack Riddiford) and Owen. Was Tom Tom Club’s “Wordy Rappinghood” always going to be the song that they were going to sing together? Did you have any other options?
That was Spike. That was just a little scene that I put in because I wanted Matt, his brother, to pick him up. I wanted it to be a small, nonverbal scene where he drives him back. Matt doesn’t have the words to cheer him up, but he knows that this song will. I spoke to Jack and Spike (about it). I think I’d been speaking about Tom Tom Club or something kind of ‘70s that would have felt like it was their mum’s favorite song or something that they’d all sung in the car together. Spike said, “Well, my mum’s favorite song is ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ by Tom Tom Club.” I played it on my phone. I’d heard it, but I didn’t really know it very well. I was like, “Yeah, this is amazing.” Because it’s really specific and unique, and that felt perfect for the story at that moment. There weren’t any backups. We just listened to that and went, “Yeah.” I spoke to the music supervisor and was, like, “What do you think?” He amazingly made it happen.
We talked about the music and setting. What else do you think makes up the perfect recipe for a rom-com?
I hope I’ve just done it (laughs). I think it’s chemistry. I think these people don’t have to be perfect at all or overly likable, but they have to be honest and they have to be real. They’re both really complex and they have a lot going on. I think a lot of characters in rom-coms invariably have to learn vulnerability. I feel like a lot of characters are closed off, and they have to learn to be open. If you can find a way to do that, but have it feel human and real, (that’s it).
I think it’s this slight alchemy of soul in a film. I’m always ready to laugh, to cry, to be moved when I watch something. I think that comes from seeing people behave like human beings, just trying their best in this complicated world.
The movie was released in the U.K. in May. I’ve seen comments on your Instagram posts from fans who have seen it saying, “Rom-coms are so back.” Do you feel with the amount of rom-coms that have come out, not just in theaters but streaming, this year that we’re in an era of their return? Or do you think people get attached to one nowadays when they feel connected to it?
I have no idea what they mean when they say, “Rom-coms are back.” It’s being said all the time. I’m confused as to where they’ve been or what people are talking about. All I know is, I made a film that I really wanted to see. It’s (an) interesting thing about the genre because it’s got a sort of bad rep, or at least it has had a bad rep of recent. I guess that’s what people mean, right? Is that what people mean? That because of the straight-to-streamer ones, the cinematic ones are back? I don’t know.
We should ask one of these people who’s commenting, like, “What do you mean? Where have they been?” But I’m thrilled this one is in the cinema because I think they really belong there. I think all films (should have) a chance to be seen in the cinema because we all deserve to watch a story uninterrupted and really be immersed in it.
One of my favorite parts is the inclusion of TikTok culture and poking fun at people doing these viral videos. You even made a cameo at one point in the film as a social media star…
You’re the only person who’s noticed that really.
How did that come about? And why did you want to include TikTok, explainer articles and more elements that have become a part of culture today?
So all of those articles, I wrote all of them. I wrote them all in different journalist voices. Because I felt like if anyone ever pauses and wants to read, I really wanted them to be legit. Those social media montages … it was quite a late decision in the edit. The reason why I ended up shooting the email sequence with all of the Emilies in Owen’s room is because I hate shooting phones because it’s so boring and I feel like we all hate seeing it. So, I’d initially not thought about a social media thing. But then you realize that you need to see the wider world. I was like, “How can we do it in a way that feels fun, that is informative and tells us what people are thinking, but that is also really, hopefully, funny and surprising?”
The reason why I ended up doing one is because we’d run out of actors and Emilies. So I just shot that with the editor ‘round the back of Abbey Road Studios. Then Phil, the editor, was like, “‘Come on, we should put you in the movie somewhere. Why don’t we make you there?’” I was like, “‘OK, in the sort of Hitchcock way.’” (The videos are) really important. I was very worried about getting them wrong and it feeling cringe. But so far people have said they’re OK.
Was the scene with all the Emily characters in Owen’s apartment the most challenging to film?
It was pretty challenging because we wanted to do it in this oner and have them all appear as they do and do it all oncamera. I didn’t want to do graphics on screen. Because I think that’s really claustrophobic. That feeling of having these people in your house, and that’s what we all feel when we’re on our laptops and stuff. It was complicated. We did a lot of takes. Everyone was super focused and dedicated to getting it right. But yeah, it was challenging.
The Canal Street scene with the 200 extras and drag queens and dancers and so much going on was also a challenge in a different way. But weirdly, yeah, I think maybe just getting that (Emily) sequence right (was difficult) because I also know we didn’t have a backup … It was stressful.
People and critics who have already seen it across the pond loved it. What have you thought about the response to this film so far?
To be honest, I found it quite overwhelming. I’ve just been in my little flat in London, on my own, reading the comments. Because obviously you read all the comments. I thought I was going to be mature enough to not look at anything. I did hold off for a bit. It’s so amazing that people are responding so well, and it’s been so emotional. I found it a wild process because a lot of myself is in it, so it’s a very raw, vulnerable, overwhelming feeling to put something out into the world, which I hadn’t quite realized.
It’s been amazing, surreal, strange (and) existential somehow because it will live forever. When I was in London, I took myself to the cinema as a punter (the) second week that it was out. I thought I would get some kind of closure from watching it as I would normally a film. I went in and I sat down and I was next to this girl, and she was on her own. She had her sweets and her popcorn. She laughed and she gasped in all the right places. I obviously never said who I was. But it kind of felt like, “OK, this is OK. One person gets it.” It’s weird … I thought I would feel better after seeing that, but it almost felt more surreal because I was like, “That’s my baby up there.”
The ending has unconventional credits with text explaining what happened to each character. Was that always going to be the ending, or is that something that came about during filming?
Yeah, it was in the script. We developed it further as we got out. It’s a homage to The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” video, and that was never the original plan. But I was speaking to Spike about what we could do, and he was like, “What about that? And get all the Emilies back?” And so we did. We tried to find somewhere that we could do it. It was obviously a more expensive way to do the end credits, but it was so fun. It felt like the right way to do it. We did (think) about whether you just leave it on them running away. But the music video is so fun. And that song, the proper produced version of (Owen’s) song, is so great. It was like, “Let’s give them a proper music video.”
