Emily is Away

“Emily” tells its story just as much with what’s not said as what it communicates in the chat: Emily’s unspoken reasons for her AIM profile quotes, the protagonist deleting far more than his most egregious typos, and the many offscreen events that drive the story forward. It’s the sort of story I’m thankful to see to completion even as I grew to not like either person in this years-long conversation (that plays out over the course of a half-hour), successfully capturing the drama of not saying the wrong thing to a friend represented onscreen with a Death Cab album cover.

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