Hugh Grant backs Finding Emily as Manchester takes centre stage
hugh grant is not in Finding Emily, but the film’s release on 22 May gives Manchester-set storytelling its latest test with audiences. Released after a premiere at the Home cinema in Manchester weeks earlier, the film arrives with its city identity built into the frame rather than added as decoration.
Manchester in the frame
Director Alicia MacDonald called Manchester the “best city ever” and described the film as a “love letter” to the city, saying she wanted to “embed” it into the fabric of the story. That approach runs through the film’s use of the Gay Village, Canal Street, Deansgate Locks, the Northern Quarter, Piccadilly Records, G-A-Y, Via and the canal.
Angourie Rice, who stars opposite Spike Fearn, said she loves movies where the city is a character. “We’ve seen so many films where New York or L.A. or Seattle take centre stage — so it’s really nice that there’s a movie where Manchester feels like a character,” she said.
Home cinema premiere
The Home cinema premiere came weeks before release, giving the film a local launch before it moved into wider circulation on 22 May. That sequence matters because it places Manchester at the start of the film’s rollout, not just in the story world.
Kat Ronney, who plays Emily Thewlis, said of Canal Street: “I’d just arrived in Manchester and saw everyone so I just hung out. The people are just so fantastic.” She added, “We went out when we were not working and being on that street, the people are just so fantastic. I loved it, it was amazing,”
Angourie Rice and Spike Fearn
The film’s plot follows a club-night romance that turns into a hunt through a university campus after a musician realises he has been given the wrong number by a love interest. Cora Kirk, who plays Anna, said viewers can “see Piccadilly Records, the Gay Village, the canal” in the film, and described it as rooted in “the culture that we’ve got, in the people, in the food, in the gritty Northerness of love”.
Finding Emily also includes a cameo from Stockport band Blossoms, tying the film further to the city-region around it. With Manchester locations, nightlife, music, culture and humour doing the heavy lifting, the release lands as a clear statement of intent: this is a rom-com built to sell place as much as plot.
