Much of Netflix’s success over the past few years can be attributed to bringing more foreign films and series to American audiences. South Korea’s Squid Game is still Netflix’s most watched series, with Spanish-language series Money Heist and French crime drama Lupin barely missing the top five. Spain’s The Platform became a hit during the pandemic, and Mexican film Roma won Alfonso Cuaron the Oscar for Best Director in 2019. What may be their greatest foreign language film yet, however, is Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, which premiered on Netflix on November 13. Emilia Perez stands out as one of 2024’s most striking films: it perfectly blends the elements of a musical, crime drama, and drama with beautiful visuals and some serious star power.
The film tells the story of Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana), a struggling Mexican lawyer who gets contacted by notorious cartel leader Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascon). Mantis reveals that they have had lifelong gender dysphoria and want to leave their life of crime to start a new life as their authentic self. They need Rita to help them secure their wife Jessi and children’s safety, fake their death, find a surgeon willing to give them an off-the-books gender reassignment surgery, and create the legal paperwork that will allow them to live as their new identity Emilia Perez.
Four years after the ruse is successful, Emilia once again needs Rita’s help. She misses her children, so Rita arranges for Jessi and the kids to return from Europe to live with “Manitas’ cousin Emilia.” Jessi (Selena Gomez) does return, but only to reunite with her past lover Gustavo (Edgar Ramirez). When Jessi and Gustavo plan to wed and move away, Emilia needs Rita’s help to keep her children without Jessi discovering that she was once Manitas.
Zoe Saldana does an amazing job capturing the viewers attention. She has wonderful chemistry with Karla Sofia Gascon and Adriana Paz, who portrays Emilia’s lover Epifania Flores, and it feels realistic that these women would become close friends. Saldana also has a great antagonistic relationship with Selena Gomez that feels very real–it’s the sort of “I don’t have anything against you personally, but you’re friends with my enemy, so I guess I’ll hate you” energy that is often felt in real life but seldom translates to film.
Gomez herself plays a great villain for the film; her weaker performance is mostly a result of how little she appears in the film–she has songs in the Billboard Top 100, two Grammy nominations, and seven Emmy nominations, yet she is only given two songs–and some of the most cringeworthy dialogue imaginable. While she has had better performances, Gomez is good enough considering what she’s given, a fact reaffirmed by the Cannes Film Festival, which collectively gave her, Saldana, Gascon, and Paz the year’s Best Actress award.
While Saldana and Gomez are good, Gascon is the breakout star with her portrayal of Emilia Perez. Gascon is a trans woman who brings a great level of authenticity both to Emilia and Manitas. Her portrayal conveys both vulnerability and strength; there are tear-jerking moments where Emilia is sympathetic, but she always maintains the sharp edge of Manitas. She plays the perfect drug kingpin before and after the gender transformation and has the Al-Pachino-in-Scarface energy of a primadonna used to always getting her way without going over the top. Emilia’s love for her children and Epifania is heartfelt, and there are moments where it’s easy to forget that she was once a cruel and unforgivable gangster.
The acting of these three leads is only strengthened by their vocal performances. Every song is mesmerizing and fits seamlessly into the story. Unlike some recent films (looking at you, Joker: Foile a Deux), the music elevates the storytelling to delve deeper into the characters’ emotions and struggles. This is an epic drama, and the soaring numbers add a sense of tension and weight to the monumental secrets and conflicts of the piece. The songs, made by French multi-platinum recording artist Camille, are both substance and spectacle, with almost every number accompanied by slick choreography and theatrical lighting.
Visually, the film is a masterpiece. Despite being shot almost exclusively on soundstages with innovative VFX, it captures the gritty essence of Mexico City as well as if the shoot was on location. Both the production design and characters seem caught between beauty and darkness, and the visual language is a treat for the eyes. Director of Photography Paul Guilhaume is a perfect fit to create the world of Emilia Perez, as he blends the stark and painful realism of his documentaries Paradise and Casa Suzanne with the otherworldly magic of his work in The Five Devils and Treat Me Like Fire.
Despite its strengths, the film isn’t perfect. Ideas of crime and corruption are sprinkled through the entire film, but it seems like the film doesn’t know what ultimately to say about the issues with the cartel culture in Mexico. GLAAD and trans film critics have also slammed the movie for its portrayal of gender dysphoria and gender transition. These critics explain that much of the film plays on harmful sterotypes of the trans community: trans woman being killers, trans people being willing to abandon their families so they can transition, the trans experience revolving just around the physical body, transition treated as the same as death, trans people not able to feel true happiness even after transitioning, trans women as being “half male/half female,” and portraying trans characters as insane and emotionally unstable.
These issues come down to the mediocre script by 72-year-old director Jacques Audiard. While the musical film is loosely inspired by the 2018 novel Ecoute by Boris Razon, the novel just contains a single scene where a French gangster asks a lawyer him to help him change his gender to evade the law. Audiard says that he then “stole the idea [and] ran with it.” While Audiard did have his script punched up by three other writer friends and the cast, the film is written from a cis perspective that makes assumptions about the trans experience that aren’t true to the realities.
Other parts of Audiard’s script also feel inauthentic. The ending is rushed, changes tone, and concludes the film in a not particularly graceful or clever way. Audiard also includes some very embarrassing and creepy lines of dialogue. There’s one particular line said by Gomez that’s supposed to be erotic but comes off as bizarre, and it’s become the most popular meme of the movie:
While offputting at times, Emilia Perez is still a bold and very moving film that deserves a watch for it’s genre-defying approach, stellar performances, and visual brilliance. It’s already a strong contender for the 2024 awards season: it won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, and France has already announced that it will be its country’s entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar.
Still, this film won’t be for everyone. The presence of the songs is inescapable, so if you don’t like musicals, the film will likely frustrate you. The film is also almost entirely in Spanish, so while this won’t bother the 63% of viewers under 30 that put on subtitles for everything they watch anyway, some viewers will skip out on the film because of this. Finally, this film about gangs and marrital affairs is definitely R and has a good deal of violence and sex (though there is no nudity). Ultimately, there is enough good to outweigh the bad in this madcap musical.
