There is a moment early in Finding Emily where the entire movie quietly explains itself. Owen meets someone during a university night out, they click instantly, and then he realizes the number she gave him is missing a digit. Ten years ago, that setup would have launched a straightforward romantic chase. In 2026, the film treats it like a social experiment that could go very wrong.
That is where Finding Emily, releasing on 22 May in UK, diverges from a lot of recent rom-coms. It clearly loves the old formula. You can feel traces of 10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless, Notting Hill, and especially When Harry Met Sally all over it. Director Alicia MacDonald openly references several of those films in the production material. But the movie also knows audiences no longer react to romantic persistence the same way they did in the late ‘90s or early 2000s.
Owen, played by Spike Fearn, is basically built like an old-school rom-com lead accidentally dropped into the modern internet era. He is emotional, impulsive, slightly embarrassing, and completely sincere. The problem is that sincerity now exists inside a culture obsessed with boundaries, optics, screenshots, and public embarrassment. The movie keeps asking whether grand romantic gestures still look romantic once everyone has phones in their hands.
Rachel Hirons’ screenplay understands that modern dating has become weirdly bureaucratic. Nobody really “searches” for people anymore. You follow, DM, swipe, stalk an Instagram story accidentally, pretend it was accidental, then overthink it for two days. Owen approaching romance like a 1998 Hugh Grant character almost feels outdated from the start. But the movie never mocks him for it.
What to Expect
A lot of modern romantic comedies try too hard to appear emotionally detached. They are scared of sincerity because sincerity can look cringe very quickly online. Finding Emily goes the other direction. It accepts that romance is awkward and sometimes humiliating. The film’s creators literally frame the story around the question of when romance becomes “lunacy.”
Angourie Rice ends up carrying a lot of that thematic weight. Her Emily is not written as the standard rom-com obstacle or cynical “love isn’t real” character. She is analytical almost to the point of emotional self-defense. The psychology thesis subplot could have turned into a gimmick very easily, but it actually works because Rice plays Emily like someone trying to intellectualize her own fear of uncertainty.
Rice has quietly become very good at playing characters who appear composed while obviously spiraling underneath. You could already see parts of that in Mare of Easttown. Here, it is funnier and sharper. She delivers dialogue with the kind of blunt rhythm that makes conversations feel less scripted than most studio rom-coms.
Spike Fearn is the bigger surprise. Most studios would have cast someone more polished in Owen’s role. Fearn does not have that carefully manufactured streaming-era leading man energy. He feels scruffier and less media-trained, which actually helps the movie. The chemistry works because the two leads seem like they are operating from completely different emotional systems. One overthinks everything. The other just feels everything immediately.
The movie apparently leaned into that difference during production too. Alicia MacDonald described Rice as calm and composed while Fearn brought “raw energy” to scenes. You can feel that imbalance onscreen in a good way.
There is also something refreshing about how Finding Emily uses the university setting. Most coming-of-age films either romanticize college life or turn it into exaggerated chaos. This movie treats final-year university life as emotionally unstable limbo that it is. Nobody fully knows who they are. Everyone acts more confident than they actually feel. Careers, relationships, visas, academic pressure, identity panic. It all bleeds together.
The film’s Manchester setting helps a lot too. American rom-coms often flatten cities into lifestyle advertisements. Finding Emily feels more lived-in than that. The Northern Quarter bars, record shops, student cafés, Canal Street nightlife, and music venues give the film texture instead of aesthetic branding. There is grime to the world. Some scenes reportedly used real locations like Piccadilly Records and Night and Day Café, which matters because Manchester’s music identity becomes part of the emotional atmosphere rather than just decoration.
That realism is probably why the comparisons to classic Working Title rom-coms make sense, even though Finding Emily is less polished than something like Love Actually or Notting Hill. It is closer in spirit to About Time or even Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. There is still warmth and optimism, but the movie seems more interested in confusion than fantasy.
Interesting Facts
Finding Emily comes from Working Title, the same production company behind Bridget Jones’s Diary, Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Four Weddings and a Funeral. The movie openly positions itself as part of that lineage while trying to update it for people who grew up online instead of through meet-cutes in bookstores.
Another interesting detail is that Angourie Rice reportedly based Emily’s hairstyle on Goldie Hawn’s look in Private Benjamin. That tracks because the movie constantly feels caught between older rom-com sensibilities and newer anxieties.
The best romantic comedies are usually not about whether two people end up together. They are about whether people still believe connection is worth the risk despite how embarrassing, inconvenient, or irrational it can feel. Finding Emily seems aware that modern audiences have become more skeptical about romance itself. But instead of rejecting that skepticism, the film builds directly around it.
That makes it feel less like a nostalgic copy of older rom-coms and more like a conversation with them.
Finding Emily – Quick Summary
Release Date: May 22, 2026
Director: Alicia MacDonald
Cast: Angourie Rice, Spike Fearn, Minnie Driver, Prasanna Puwanarajah
Plot: A university musician tries to track down a woman after receiving an incomplete phone number, leading to an unexpected partnership with a psychology student researching romantic attachment.
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Setting: Manchester, England