The Oscars announced their nominations for the 97th Academy Awards earlier this year and movie fans were shocked to see Emilia Pérez nominated for 13 awards. When the list was released, I hadn’t seen the movie itself but had watched many videos on social media with scathing reviews. I was curious why it was being praised to this extent, so I decided to give it a watch. Needless to say, I have to agree with social media. The hate is well-deserved.
The movie has been nominated in these 13 Oscar categories:
- Actress in a Leading Role (Karla Sofía Gascón)
- Actress in a Supporting Role (Zoe Saldaña)
- Cinematography (Emilia Pérez)
- Directing (Jacques Audiard)
- Film Editing (Juliette Welfling)
- International Feature Film (Emilia Pérez – France)
- Makeup and Hairstyling (Julia Floch Carbonel, Emmanuel Janvier, and Jean-Christophe Spadaccini)
- Music – Original Score (Clément Ducol and Camille)
- Music – Original Song x1 (“El Mal” from Emilia Pérez: Music by Clément Ducol and Camille; Lyric by Clément Ducol, Camille, and Jacques Audiard)
- Music – Original Song x2 (“Mi Camino” from Emilia Pérez: Music and Lyric by Camille and Clément Ducol)
- Best Picture (Pascal Caucheteux and Jacques Audiard – Producers)
- Sound (Erwan Kerzanet, Aymeric Devoldère, Maxence Dussère, Cyril Holtz, and Niels Barletta)
- Writing – Adapted Screenplay (Screenplay by Jacques Audiard; In collaboration with Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius, and Nicolas Livecchi)
For those who haven’t seen the movie, Emilia Pérez is about a transgender cartel leader, Juan “Manitas” del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón), who hires a lawyer named Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña) to help her transition into life as a woman. In doing so, she tries to reconnect with her kids that she had with her ex-wife, Jessi del Monte (Selena Gomez).
There are a number of issues surrounding Emilia Pérez whether it’s poor trans representation or a controversial depiction of Mexico, but there’s also the issue of its controversial use of artificial intelligence (AI). In May 2024, Cyril Holtz revealed in a French interview that the movie used AI to enhance Karla Sofía Gascón’s singing voice. He explained that they used AI to assist the narrative of Gascón’s character going through a gender change and news outlet WBALTV even claim that AI was used throughout the entire film. The AI software used is called Respeecher, which allows someone’s voice to sound like another’s, and it was used to blend Gascón’s voice with French pop star, Camille. This was done because Gascón wasn’t vocally capable of hitting certain notes and she is now nominated for this performance despite it not being entirely her own.
I knew about the use of AI in the movie before watching it so I was going in with low expectations, but I kept an open mind considering it is critically acclaimed. In a positive light, the movie did keep me engaged. There was always something exciting happening on screen or a tension that locked me in. The cinematography and writing were mostly well executed. On the other hand, the musicality of this movie was disappointing. My first impression of this movie was its music, so to hear the poor lyricism and awkward sound quality didn’t make for an enjoyable experience. The music wasn’t terrible, but there weren’t any outstanding songs, so I’m unsure why it was nominated four times for its music and sound.
While watching, I kept an ear out for the nominated songs, “El Mal” and “Mi Camino,” but didn’t notice anything particularly exciting about them. I enjoyed them more than other songs from the film, but there wasn’t anything extremely special that made me believe they warranted Oscar nominations. Most of all, I’m surprised to see two songs from the same movie in one category considering their unfair use of AI. In the end, I wasn’t in awe of the nominated songs and was shocked that such a mediocre performance is being regarded so highly.
Still, it wasn’t entirely terrible. I could see the film being nominated for categories like editing, writing, or cinematography since I didn’t notice any issues with those aspects. Even so, when looking at the other nominated films, I don’t see how Emilia Pérez can compete. For example, comparing the music performed in Emilia Pérez to the performances in Wicked it’s crazy to me considering Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande performed live vocals on set, and Gascón needed assistance hitting notes in post-production. In the makeup category, the body horror effects in The Substance were much more impressive than the makeup in Emilia Pérez. They feel incomparable as The Substance’s makeup was truly stunning in a horrific way whereas the makeup in Emilia Pérez was just satisfactory.
Despite all of this negativity, a positive aspect is that Gascón is the first openly transgender woman nominated for this Academy Award. Although I’m still a tad bitter about her use of AI, this is a win of its own.
The Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at 4:00 p.m. PST and can be watched on Hulu, any ABC channel, or streamed live with a subscription on Hulu Live TV, YouTubeTV, AT&T TV, or FuboTV.