Finding Emily does what it says on the tin when Manchester University employee Owen (Spike Fearn – Ella McCay) chances across ‘Fairy Emily’ (Sadie Soverall – Arcadian) on a night in town, gets her phone number, but later finds the rushed typing has left it missing a digit.
In theory, you should bump into her again when you’re about in campus, although I can remember at least one time when I bumped into my ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’, as they’re called, and then never saw her again…
Owen doesn’t want to follow in my footsteps, so tries to figure out how to track her down (in a nice way), his searching bringing him to another Emily, Emily Raine (Angourie Rice – Mean Girls, The Nice Guys), one of her ideas being to email ALL the Emilys – as if the intranet email system is going to bring up every name JUST by typing ‘Emily’, since that’s not how it works.
Meanwhile, aside from the fact that Emily is lusting after hunky Tristan (Timothy Innes – Daphne), Owen lives with his brother, Matt (Jack Riddiford – McDonald & Dodds) and his other half, Freya (Isabella Laughland – The Road Trip), in their mother’s house, who passed away a year ago, and they’re looking to sell up and move on, but it doesn’t seem to take too long before the protagonist is inadvertently brought to the fore by podcaster Laura Lewis (Nadia Parkes – Lynley), he goes viral and everything spirals out of control.
Picture taken by his wife, Katie.
On the plus side, Finding Emily is well-meaning, with good performances from Fearn and Rice, a seemingly impromptu version of Wordy Rappinghood, great scenery with shots of Manchester including the Northern Quarter, a videogame music version of The Charlatans’ The Only One I Know, and at the Leavers’ Ball, two songs from Stockport’s very own and excellent Blossoms, including the accurate There’s a Reason Why (I Never Returned Your Calls).
Oh, and a very amusing moment when a lad bites off a bottle top with his teeth… albeit this Tommy Cannon is not THAT Tommy Cannon.
On the downside, at 110 minutes, the film goes on too long, and could easily lose 15 mins as it falls into some of the usual romcom movie clichés we’ve seen before. There’s far too many films that drone on for nearly two hours, when they could be easily done and dusted in a neat 90 minutes.
As an aside, it’s funny that Angourie’s student digs are in the Chorlton Mill apartments, given that students have bugger all money, and these flats cost £1600/month to rent!
The closing credits don’t feature a specific narrative scene, as such, but mix vignettes of what happened next to various characters in the film, with a video of Spike Fearn performing his own song, Catch You Up, in a spoof/homage of The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony.
Finding Emily is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 110 minutes
Release date: May 29th 2026
Studio: Universal Pictures UK
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 7/10
Director: Alicia MacDonald
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Olivier Kaempfer
Screenplay: Rachel Hirons
Music: Morgan Kibby
Cast:
Owen: Spike Fearn
Emily Raine: Angourie Rice
Fairy Emily: Sadie Soverall
Frida Kahlo: Clara Lioe
Pervy Martin: Phil Wang
Rhea: Amber Grappy
Laura Lewis: Nadia Parkes
Matt: Jack Riddiford
Freya: Isabella Laughland
Receptionist: Fiona Allen
Kyle: Anthony J Abraham
Professor Westlake: Prasanna Puwanarajah
Tristan: Timothy Innes
Dean Watkinson: Minnie Driver
Bottle Opener Guy: Tommy Cannon
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.