Saying the title Emilia Pérez around your film-adoring friends will elicit intense physical reactions of disgust and loathing. Still, you may have wondered: “What actually happens in this movie?” Emilia Pérez has had its fair share of controversies surrounding both the film and its cast, but could this controversy stem from prejudice towards the movie’s sensitive subject matter rather than the actual plot?
Emilia Pérez is a genre-defying musical crime drama written and directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard. The film did not have a nationwide theatrical release; it was only released in select theaters two weeks before its Netflix debut. This was assumedly due to the Academy’s recent rule that a movie must have a theatrical release for at least one week to be nominated for an Oscar.
Plot and Storytelling
The concept of this movie, on paper, is extremely interesting. A down-on-her-luck lawyer is enlisted to help a cartel leader fake his death and transition into a woman, leaving a life of crime behind along with his family. Chaos ensues as the ex-cartel leader tries to repent for her past life by becoming the head of a non-profit charity organization and rekindling a relationship with her ex-wife and sons, discovering friends and enemies along the way.
This sounds like a film that could provide needed insight into cartel violence in Mexico, the nuances of transitioning, and racism and misogyny in professional settings like law. Alternatively, this movie seems to offend every group it attempts to represent, creating an unorganized story and half-written characters.
The film is a whopping 130 minutes long and tries to characterize four immensely different women in a setting completely foreign to the non-English or Spanish-speaking director, so you could say it was doomed from the start.
Characterization and Performances
You don’t need to know the controversies surrounding Karla Sofía Gascón to critique her performance as the title character, Emilia Pérez. Emilia’s story is a horrible mix of out-of-touch writing and unconvincing acting.
Before her transition, Manitas del Monte, the leader of the largest drug cartel in Mexico, is portrayed as the most vulnerable mass murderer to ever exist. In his first conversation with lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana), he immediately lets his guard down, singing to her about his lifelong desire to be a woman. He is also shown to be a family man! He loves his children and wife, Jessi Del Monte (Selena Gomez).
This characterization of a cartel leader as a sympathetic, kind, soft-spoken man is horrifically out of touch. Cartel violence remains a massive issue in Mexico. According to the Global Conflict Tracker, as of May 2024, cartels controlled about one-third of Mexico’s territory.
Similarly, Emilia Pérez portrays the lead’s transition as the birth of a new person, excusing her prior actions as actions of Manitas, not Emilia. Further, the film treats gender-affirming surgery like magic. Emilia is not recognized by her ex-wife or sons and does not face any prejudice for being a transgender woman, something I think was illogical for the writer and actress not to address.
These topics were reduced to harmful stereotypes and gross misrepresentation by Audiard.
Zoe Saldana’s performance as lawyer Rita Mora Castro left me much more conflicted. I think the way she was written was as a shallow girl boss archetype: she dances sexually during random musical numbers, she is dissatisfied with corrupt politics, and the action is initiated by her asking a random woman for a tampon. However, her acting was phenomenal and made her poorly written character almost likable.
Something that made this movie an even more confusing experience was that Rita had very inconsistent morals. In the first 10 minutes, she is thoroughly established as a discontented, apathetic woman weighed down by the injustice around her. Shortly after this, she is tearing up hearing the desire of a cartel leader to avoid penalties for his actions. Emilia and Rita becoming #besties when they reunite is completely opposed to Rita’s values of justice — especially against rich people rigging the system!
Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz are relatively minor characters whose lives both revolve around Manitas del Monte and Emilia Pérez, respectively. Unfortunately, in a story meant to be about authentic female empowerment, these two characters don’t have aspects of their personalities that don’t revolve around current and ex-lovers.
Unintentionally Funny Moments
This movie is a tonal mess. It tries to place itself in reality by addressing real issues and having really bad singing. Still, this film is full of “they-thought-they-ate” moments that lose their impact because of how vapidly each matter is addressed.
Rita’s journey in obtaining surgeons for Emilia is unintentionally hilarious. Of course, there is the now-infamous “sex change operation” number, but I found Rita’s scene with the actual surgeon to be much more audacious. The doctor disagrees that Rita’s client needs this many surgeries saying, rather poorly singing, that “he’d better change I.D.”
In response, Rita delivers a speech ripped straight from a corny Instagram infographic: “Changing the body changes society. Changing society changes the soul. Changing the soul changes society, changing society changes it all!” This song made me laugh out loud, given how blatantly stereotypical the transgender character Emilia Pérez is.
The songs in this movie seem to want to emulate a realistic style, causing much of this singing to be borderline speaking or whispering to a bland melody. However, unlike the raspiness of Sally Bowles from Cabaret or the mildness of Mia in La La Land, nearly every character in Emilia Pérez is singing off-key and oddly quietly no matter the realism of the music number.
Of course, Selena Gomez provides an impressive vocal performance, but, given that this is a movie musical, it seems most other characters did not have to audition with a song. This is very ironic, given that the director admitted to using AI to increase the vocal range of lead Karla Sofía Gascón. One can only imagine what these songs would’ve sounded like without this enhancement.
I could go on to talk about every sickening aspect of this movie, but that would make this article about 10,000 words (no one wants to read that). If you want to consume some very poignant trans cinema from the past year, check out I Saw the TV Glow, The People’s Joker, or Will & Harper.
In summary, I think this movie is an unfortunate choice for LGBTQ+ and Mexican representation by the Academy, as it perpetuates gross stereotypes of both groups. Emilia Pérez is less a bold statement on identity and justice and more a muddled, misguided spectacle that fumbles every theme it attempts to tackle.
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