OK, you have to look beyond the generic movie poster and title because this film is so much better than the marketing suggests.
This is a could-be-classic English rom-com from the same production company behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, About a Boy and Bridget Jones’ Diary.
Is it as “good” as those widely beloved predecessors? Perhaps not quite, and that depends on your own mileage, and in time, with copious rewatches, it could reach those heights. But, for now, it has a similar vibe in terms of its tone, sense of humour and even pacing
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These are character types and story beats you’ll recognise, and if it had been put together poorly, it would be called lazy, but Finding Emily is brimming with charm, so it gets to fall on the right side of nostalgia instead.
There is something very throwback about it, as if you’re watching a movie from the late 1990s, which is not to say that it’s not modern – it has today’s technology and sexual politics. But there’s an optimism and joy that seems effortless, and that’s something you don’t see all that often anymore.
Spike Fearn in Finding Emily. Credit: Matt Squire/Working Title
The film is set in Manchester, and is centred on Owen (Spike Fearn, who will surely be cast as Liam Gallagher if anyone decides to make that Oasis biopic), a staffer at the university. He used to be in a band, but quit some years earlier.
One night at his job at a local bar frequented by uni students, he meets a girl in a fairy costume and for at least 20 minutes, they have the most incredible connection. Her name is Emily and she puts her number in his phone, but he discovers the next morning that it’s missing a digit.
Owen is certain that Fairy Emily is the girl for him, and he figures, how many Emilys could there be at the university. His quest to find her puts him in the path of another Emily (Angourie Rice), an American psychology student who is struggling with her final thesis.
Her academic contention is that love makes us crazy, and that evolutionarily, we no longer need these romantic partnerships to survive, so why are we putting ourselves through these trials that rob us of rationality.
Emily thinks Owen is the perfect subject for her paper, and offers to help him track down Fairy Emily while secretly observing him. Look, you can guess what happens next but it unfolds in a way that still maintains suspense – you know the destination, but it’s about the journey, right?
The film, directed by Alicia MacDonald and written by Rachel Hirons, engages with the two-sided nature of grand romantic gestures that movies like rom-coms have, to some degree, normalised.
Finding Emily is in cinemas from May 21. Credit: Matt Squire/Working Title
Owen’s dogged pursuit of a girl in a bar who maybe accidentally, maybe intentionally gave him an incomplete number becomes a hot debate on campus where his extreme acts are called out as massive red flags.
You couldn’t make this movie for 2026 without at least touching the sides of this in a way that earlier rom-coms never did. Remember, the difference between a grand gesture and a stalker is reciprocation. Finding Emily adeptly weaves its heroes through the discourse.
There are some contrivances, as par for the genre, but it earns it so you suspend disbelief.
Fearn and Rice have a cute chemistry together, and you want to root for them – not always a guarantee, and it’s shocking how often rom-com leads don’t have that spark (ahem, Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell) – and the characters are charismatic and likeable with relatable vulnerabilities.
A lot of traditional, escapist rom-coms have the right ingredients, but it’s all about how it comes together, and Finding Emily is a winning recipe.
Finding Emily is in cinemas from May 21
