Working Title, the production company behind Bridget Jones’s Diary and Notting Hill, has released a new gen Z romcom, Finding Emily, directed by Alicia MacDonald from a script by Rachel Hirons. Set in Manchester, the film follows indie singer-songwriter Owen (Spike Fearn) as he meets undergraduate Emily (Sadie Soverall) at the student union, only for her to accidentally input the wrong number into his phone. Convinced it is a mistake, Owen launches a campus-wide search.
After a tipoff, he encounters psychology student Emily (Angourie Rice), who agrees to help by suggesting he email every student named Emily enrolled at the university – all 318 of them. Owen accidentally sends the email to all recipients instead of using BCC, creating an email group of Emilies who are divided in their reactions: some label him a creepy incel, while others see a diehard romantic. Owen quickly becomes a meme, dubbed “email guy”.
The film offers a gentle send-up of campus culture wars and social media pile-ons, with amusing scenes including Owen’s appearance on a college YouTube channel where he plays a song for Emily. One comment compares it to “Ed Sheeran on Crimewatch”, while another coins the hashtag #ratboysummer. Psychology student Emily, meanwhile, has an ulterior motive: she wants to use Owen as a case study for her thesis that being in love is temporary insanity.
Supporting characters provide much of the comedy, notably Prasanna Puwanarajah as Emily’s professor, a celebrity psychologist with a rampant ego. The film shares DNA with Richard Curtis’s comedies – warm-hearted and charming, though with a level of cheesiness that some may find cringe. Spike Fearn’s Owen is distractingly the spitting image of a young Liam Gallagher, while Angourie Rice’s Emily resembles Taylor Swift at certain angles, which can feel oddly surreal.
Overall, Finding Emily is impossible to hate, despite one or two performances lacking comic flair. It is a warm, light-touch romcom that resonates with its gen Z audience.
