My Name Is Emily

My Name is Emily is a 2015 Irish independent drama film written and directed by Simon Fitzmaurice in his only feature film credit; on 26 October 2017, he died of motor neurone disease. The film stars Evanna Lynch, Michael Smiley and newcomer George Webster. 16-year-old Emily runs away from her foster home, trying to free her writer father (Smiley) from a mental institution after not receiving a card for her birthday. The film follows Emily (Lynch) and Arden (Webster) as they travel across Ireland in a coming of age tale/road movie.

My Name is Emily premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh on 7 July 2015, and had a limited theatrical release in Ireland on 8 April 2016. It was released in the U.S. on 17 February 2017 in select areas. At Galway Film Fleadh producer Kathryn Kennedy won the Bingham Ray New Talent Award, and Seamus Deasy received the prize for Best Cinematography. My Name is Emily was nominated for eight IFTA Awards in 2016 including Best Film, Best Actress in a Lead Role (Lynch) and Best Film Script (Fitzmaurice).

In Dublin, Ireland, 14-year-old Emily Egan (Lynch) has been placed into foster care after her philosophical father Robert (Smiley), a local university professor and best-selling author of Swimming and Sex is committed to a psychiatric institution in the northern part of the country following complaints from locals of disturbing behaviour (such as frequent public nudity), his papers having been signed by a distant relative who felt he was no longer competent to raising Emily. Two years later, after having been hauled from one foster home to the next, including her uncle's where an older cousin of hers attempted to sexually abuse her from reading her father's erotic novel, Emily lives with June (Chiarain) and Steve (Loui Vangelder), foster parents she feels are not the worst but too suffocating, often rebuffing their attempts at kindness, notably June's. Emily feels June pressures her to be happy when she finds herself incapable of doing so due to her clinical depression. In the present, she often reflects on her happy earlier childhood (Millie Donnelly, Hunter and Sadie Fitzmaurice, Sarah Minto) with her father, her unconventional home education with him and how he changed dramatically after the death of her mother, also named Emily (Mullins) on the night of her birthday in a car accident, an event that led to his mental breakdown; he became obsessed with writing, refusing to eat and sleep and was preoccupied with the concept that humans and the surrounding universe, such as a blade of grass, shared the same molecules. As an ode to her mother, Emily dons an intricate bracelet she used to wear at all times.

Emily is enrolled in a new secondary school and quickly attracts the attention of an awkward half-Irish, half-English classmate Arden (Webster) who is unrequitedly smitten with her, though she is initially standoffish and uninterested in his attempts of a relationship. Contrarily, Emily is outcast by her teachers and bullied by her peers (Hughes) for her oddity and intellectual arrogance, such as refusing to introduce herself on her first day and rebelling against an assignment to dissect a Wordsworth poem "Ode on Intimations of Immortality" for its obvious sexual message. On the day of her 16th birthday where Emily is troubled at the absence of a birthday card from her father, a tradition he has kept since his commitment, she contemplates suicide at the bottom of the school pool, much to the concern and frustration of her swimming teacher (McCann) who is forced to pull her to safety. Not comprehending her actions, she is further humiliated by her classmates as she is banned from class. Later that afternoon, Arden drops by her home to deliver a present, an old book handed down to him by his Irish grandmother (McCusker), John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Emily does not thank him, though accepts the gift.

Thereafter, she welcomes him accompanying her on their way home from school. When she returns home however, she grows upset at still finding that no letter from her father has arrived in the mail and despite June's assurance, she has an emotional meltdown. The next morning, she meets Arden at his home during a confrontation with his strict, physically abusive father (Conlon) and sensitive, submissive mother (White) and pleads for him to help her travel to the psychiatric institution and rescue Robert. At first reluctant, Arden eventually agrees as they both skip school. At first, they attempt to hitchhike in the rain with no luck until Arden enlists the help of his Granny to borrow her 70s canary-yellow Renault 4. After a full day on the road, on the following morning the two stop by a supermarket for breakfast, though Emily manipulates her way into only paying for a bouquet of flowers for Robert while shoplifting the rest, which upsets Arden given he would rather pay "like normal people" would, prompting Emily to justify that the money would be more useful towards border crossing and questions what it means to be "normal".

Following this incident, Emily grows paranoid of authority, believing they will attempt to stop her from reaching her destination and at one point, orders Arden to drive away from a curious Guard (Ó Héalai) questioning them for IDs. Camping on the beach for the night, Emily and Arden are ambushed by a local gang. When Arden is beaten in an outnumbered fight and runs towards the car for help, Emily is left vulnerable inside the tent where she is threatened to be raped by the gang's leader, telling him coldly, "Fuck off." However, Arden returns having retrieved his deceased grandfather's handgun from the glove compartment, frightening the gang into submission as they flee. A mutual trust therein develops between Emily and Arden as they eventually arrive at the institution.

Arden invents a theatrical distraction atop the roof of one of the buildings, entertaining the patients whilst alarming the orderlies as Emily, bouquet in hand, searches for Robert. Coming upon his room however, she finds not her father but Dr. Golding (McGovern) who quietly informs her that her father is no longer a patient at the facility. Inviting her to his office, he explains to her that the hospital does not hold people against their will, that Robert, after some time, voluntarily admitted himself, a fact that greatly upsets Emily. Destroying the flowers outside, Arden comes to her aid where the two leave to Emily's grandfather's summerhouse, uncertain of their paths. After getting into a disagreement, Arden storms out of the home where Emily attempts to follow him, though meets her father instead unexpectedly. Emily confronts him about her abandonment trauma, saying, "You said nothing could separate us. But you did," not understanding why he would intentionally shut her out as she exits and runs towards the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Emily leaps into the water and her boots fall off. Arden retrieves her and pulls her to shore, expressing his feelings for her. Emily opens herself up to him and as the two head back towards the summerhouse, they make out in the bathroom. As Emily faces her father again wearing her mother's dress, she appears to forgive him and she agrees to return home to June while her father remains at the summerhouse. Emily's depression seems to lift as she faces the future more optimistically, running into the sea to greet Arden, smiling as he photographs her.

Fitzmaurice began writing the script shortly after his 2008 Sundance premiere of his short film, The Sound of People and before he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease; he learned of his illness the same day him and his wife, Ruth, a radio professional, discovered they were pregnant with their third child. Upon being completely paralyzed by the disease and expected to live for only four more years by his doctors, he completed the script using a Tobii eye gaze computer that monitors and translates the movement of his eyes into words and audio with the assistance of predictive text function. In order to raise production costs for the film, on 8 November 2013, producers set up a thirty-day crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo. The campaign quickly gained support from fellow Irish and British celebrities, including Colin Farrell, Alan Rickman, Sam Neill, Jim Sheridan, Lenny Abrahamson, Kirsten Sheridan and Shimmy Marcus. On 16 September 2014, it was announced that Evanna Lynch was cast in the lead alongside Michael Smiley and newcomer George Webster in supporting roles.