Emilia Pérez (2024)

Dir: Jacques Audiard

Cast: Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofia Gascon, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Mark Ivanir, Edgar Ramirez

This heavily flawed narco-opera is a tonal and narrative mess, thankfully it is slightly redeemed by Audiard’s bombastic direction and Saldaña’s impressive central performance

While award season is yet to enter its most frantic and crucial weeks, which will see countless movie stars and directors pushed from pillar to post to market their respective efforts, some films have been doing the rounds for months as a result of their earlier premieres at either Sundance of Cannes. One such film is the undeniably audacious musical drama “Emilia Pérez”, directed by veteran French auteur Jacques Audiard. The 72-year-old has had a long-standing career having earned his first screenwriting credit fifty years ago, but despite his longevity within the film industry, Audiard has yet to receive a single nomination at the Academy Awards. Despite helming many acclaimed films throughout his illustrious career, most notably “A Prophet” (2009), “Rust and Bone” (2012) and “Dheepan” (2015), Audiard has struggled to gain worldwide recognition, but has become a household name throughout Europe and is regarded as one of the best French filmmakers working today.

Despite his advanced age, the Parisian filmmaker’s latest project is arguably his most ambitious yet, venturing away from his native France, to tell an eccentric, musical tale predominantly in the Spanish-speaking Mexico. Audiard began work on “Emilia Pérez” back in 2018, when he developed a screenplay from his own story, which he initially intended to be an opera libretto, thus explaining the movie’s musical sub-genre. Despite his many years of filmmaking, this marks the first time Audiard has written a script independently. Loosely based on Boris Razon’s 2018 novel “Écoute”, “Emilia Pérez” is a bold, genre-bending piece of filmmaking that attempts to balance themes surrounding female empowerment, cartel violence and transitioning. While I am sure Audiard approached this passion project with the best intentions, its often muddled tone has seen some backlash from members of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as Mexican natives regarding crude and stereotypical depictions of its transgender protagonist as well as Mexican culture and its crime rates. While I feel there is some justification in these criticisms, I think the melodramatic tone of the film allows it not to take itself too seriously, despite touching on sensitive subjects.

Despite these reservations from some critics, “Emilia Pérez” is currently shaping up to be one of the major award players in the build up to the upcoming 97th Academy Awards, having won three prizes at Cannes in May, including the Jury Prize and Best Actress for the entire female ensemble, as well as finishing first runner-up at TIFF in September. Notably, the TIFF People’s Choice Award winner has gone onto receive a Best picture nomination every year bar one since 2008, while “Emilia Perez” did finish in the runner-up spot this year, the eventual winner “The Life of Chuck” has seen its release delayed until 2025, ultimately making Audiard’s cartel-musical the de facto winner.

When we are first introduced to our titular protagonist Emilia (Karla Sofia Gascon), she is not yet the woman she has always wanted to be, but instead the man she wishes to leave behind. Not just your ordinary man neither, but notorious Mexican drug cartel leader Manitas Del Monte. Despite years of drug trafficking and murdering his enemies, Manitas has come to release he was not only born into the wrong body, but also the wrong life. In a bid to leave the cartel world behind him, Manitas pursues gender-reassignment surgery, and is aided in doing so by lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña). Having been kidnapped off the street by Manitas’ goons, Rita is given an ultimatum in which she can have unimaginable wealth if she assists Manitas in starting his new life as a woman. After locating a top surgeon for the operation, Rita helps stage Manitas “death”, as well as relocating his grieving wife Jessi (Selena Gomez), and two children to the safety of the Swiss alps.

Four years later, Rita encounters Emilia for the first time following the transition, with the latter expressing her desire to reunite with her children. Rita arranges for Jessi and the children to relocate back to Mexico City, to live with Emilia, under the guise of Manitas’ distant cousin. Jessi fails to recognise Emilia and only agrees to return to Mexico to rekindle her relationship with past lover Gustavo (Edgar Ramirez), despite Emilia’s protestations as “family”, without revealing her true identity. Emilia herself wishes to make amends of her past life by starting a Non-profit organisation supporting missing persons cases throughout Mexico, many of which she may be personally responsible for, and seeks clemency from one of the victim’s wives, Epifania (Adriana Paz).

This audacious project sees Audiard touch on several topics, but the core theme that runs through the admittedly janky narrative, is once again that of reinvention, something that the filmmaker has regularly explored throughout his career. The Academy Award nominated “A Prophet” saw its central protagonist “transition” from juvenile delinquent to crime kingpin following a stint in prison, and more recently the Palme d’Or winning “Dheepan” follows a former Tamil militant who adopts a new persona whilst claiming asylum in France. Where “Emilia Perez” fails with its own story of transition, is that Manitas and Emilia are played by Gascon as two completely different characters. Manitas is an unquestionably despicable character, responsible for the deaths of countless people in his native country, including children, yet once he has transitioned to Emilia, the audience is made to feel sympathetic towards her struggles with her new life and isolation from her family. Regardless of gender, this is the same person, one who has committed heinous acts of violence for years, regardless of a very unlikely redemption arc involving locating missing persons she is solely responsible for. This is where I understand the LGBTQ community in their criticisms against the central protagonist, as Emilia’s transition is not one to express her freedom in finally being the woman she has always wanted, but one to escape a life of crime that would one day catch up with her.

Similarly, the real protagonist of the movie, Rita, undergoes her own crusade for absolution. Despite having been shockingly undervalued in her work as a defence attorney, Rita continuously went against her conscience by helping exonerate seemingly guilty men accused of murdering vulnerable women, and is too looking to make amends. However, much like Audiard with his script, Saldaña’s central character apparently forgets the wickedness of Emilia before her transition, with Rita becoming increasingly sympathetic towards a character she once felt threatened by, blinded by her own financial gain, which I find baffling. Despite their characters being questionably written, undergoing unlikely arcs of redemption and acceptance respectively, Gascon and Saldaña are excellent in their leading roles, the latter in particular producing career best work. A demanding role no doubt for the “Avatar” star, but she full embraces the challenge of adopting her native Spanish-tongue and is given the bulk of the musical numbers.

While his first attempt at writing a screenplay single-handedly may have fallen short of the mark, there is no doubting Audiard’s directing ability. “Emilia Pérez” is one of the most visually striking releases of the year and Audiard’s natural craft, alongside Paul Guilhaume‘s cinematography, prevents this genre-bending musical from falling apart at the seems. The same cannot be said for the music however, with most of the songs being performed in musical styles that contradict the message or tone that the lyrics are attempting to convey. One of the most blatant examples being the movie’s big award season push “El Mal”, which sees Rita gleefully rap her condemnation of the corrupt donors of Emilia’s NGO. Not one of the many original songs penned by French singer Camille manages to produce a memorable rhythm, resulting in jarring shifts from soap opera levels of melodrama to bizarre musical numbers.

Having finally seen “Emilia Pérez” following its early award season buzz, I was left somewhat underwhelmed by a slapdash and tonally conflicted script. With its out of place musical numbers, questionable central redemption arc and thin narrative, narrowly saved by solid performances and visuals, my feelings towards the film almost mirror those I have towards Todd Phillip‘s “Joker: Folie a Deux”, which has faced nothing but scrutiny since its release last month, which makes me question as to how Audiard’s musical crime drama has become a major awards player.

Emilia Pérez is now showing in UK Cinemas

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