Emilia Pérez, 2024.
Written and Directed by Jacques Audiard.
Starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir, Eduardo Aladro, Emiliano Hasan, Lucas Varoclier, Daniel Velasco-Acosta, James Gerard, and Sébastien Fruit.
SYNOPSIS:
In Mexico, a lawyer receives an unexpected offer to help a feared cartel boss retire from his business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamed of being.
A cartel boss wanting to fake death to discreetly and privately undergo gender reassignment surgery and live a new life, even at the expense of giving up a wife and children (but still making sure they are safe and financially set for life), is such a bold, emotionally devastating idea for a story that, to put it bluntly, is embarrassingly handled here by co-writer-director Jacques Audiard. That’s primarily because all the filmmakers (courtesy of a screenplay in collaboration with Thomas Bidegain, Nicolas Livecchi, and Léa Mysius, based on a novel by Boris Razon) see in Emelia Pérez are opportunities to take wild storytelling swings to shock audiences rather than characterize the eponymous character pre-transition or post-transition.
For some reason, it’s also a musical that is initially fixated on the perspective of lawyer Rita Moro Castro (Zoe Saldana), an uninteresting character who mainly exists to advance the story. Pre-transition, Emilia (going by the name Manitas Del Monte) makes a mysterious call to Rita, who quickly gets involved with the situation; the alternative is helping wife murderers get off free. They connect, briefly learn about one another, and go their separate ways once Rita finds a suitable candidate to perform the surgery. Four years later, Emilia (played with fierce authority and a softer side by Karla Sofía Gascón), in London, forces her way back into Rita’s life for assistance, posing as a secret cousin to Manitas, expressing that she can’t live without her children. This brings the widowed (but not really) Jessi (Selena Gomez) back into Emilia’s life, with marital secrets emerging.
There is a roughly 10-minute stretch where Emilia Pérez elicits an emotional response; she is reconnecting with her children (one of them points out that she smells like dad) and barely holding it together, not revealing her true identity to Jessi. Then, the film suddenly takes a sharp turn into activism, with Emilia trying to make a change about cartels frequently abducting children. This development feels forced and insincere since she has never suggested doing anything of the sort before. She also develops another love interest while becoming increasingly frustrated that Jessi is seeing someone else.
Badly trying to make the point that, even if you transition to the opposite gender, you can’t necessarily change who you are on the inside, Emilia Pérez barrels off the rails. The dramatic shifts in Emilia’s personality aren’t just unconvincing but often feel ridiculous and contrived for the sake of upping the ante on the shock value. Aside from one musical number (a song at a fancy dinner where Rita imagines expressing her hatred for the crooked politicians and law enforcement members in the room), that aspect adds nothing here. Most of the songs aren’t even full-on musical numbers but characters inexplicably launching into singing the script, sometimes to the beat of the original score.
Some will unquestionably find the material offensive and ugly. That’s not the issue, though. LGBTQ characters have every right to be depicted as flawed and problematic as heterosexual cis characters. The ensemble is also doing their best with the material (but mostly failing at finding something illuminating about any of these characters. Emilia Pérez is a series of admittedly bold story beats without any meaningful characterization to drive or make any of it come alive. The only engaging element is the family drama, which eventually becomes the most outrageous and disastrous component.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
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