Finding Emily (2026)

I loved this rom-com about a Gen Z musician trying to locate his dream girl at her college in England. Spike Fearn stars as Owen and Angourie Rice plays a different Emily who helps Owen in his quest. I particularly enjoyed Prasanna Puwanarajah as a snarky professor, Minnie Driver as the beleaguered dean, and Kat Ronney as a pink-haired Emily.

Alicia MacDonald makes her feature debut directing from the sweet script by Rachel Hirons. Music is important here and, even though we don't learn that Owen is a musician until the second act, there are 28 songs, according to this site. The Apple Music soundtrack lists only thirteen, with five of them by the movie's composer Morgan Kibby and not included in the 28.

Interesting trivia factoids include that it was originally set at UCLA but Hirons moved it to Manchester, England, a half hour from her home, where it was almost entirely shot; and that Fearn had a lot of training to perform as a musician.

This movie had been on my radar for a long time. As my long-time followers know, since lockdown I have only streamed movies, almost always in the afternoon. But now I am away from my home theatre for a few months, and my current apartment's windows are very sunny in the afternoon. So I went to my second movie in a bricks-and-mortar theatre since Tenet, when eleven of us rented a screening room in November of 2020. This time I forgot to ask for the caption device and, wow, did I need it. Owen's Manchester accent is thick and his brother's is even thicker. That said, it is now available for rent and you should turn on the captions. I may even watch it again sometime to see what I missed.

Rice was last blogged for Mean Girls and Driver for Millers in Marriage. Fearn has a handful of credits, including Aftersun, though I failed to mention him. Puwanarajah looked familiar because he was in seven episodes of Too Much and two of The Crown. Ronney is new to me. This is Hirons' fourth feature and Kibby's twelfth.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences have found this project very enjoyable, averaging 89 and 90%. I watched it September 5. Don't walk away when the credits roll, because there's a major "where are they now" bonus.