French filmmaker Jacques Audiard’s latest and most ambitious feature Emilia Pérez is a unique, intricately devised story told in an original, bracing, and ultimately exhausting fashion. A blend of narco thriller elements and high camp show-stopping musical numbers, Emilia Pérez is a tale of identity, gender performance, and the darker side of human nature. Audiard’s first film in the Spanish language (which won awards for Best Actress and a Jury Prize at Cannes earlier in the year) starts at a propulsive and forceful full tilt before running out of steam in its later moments. It’s an interesting and captivating film, but not one where the substance is able to fully match up to the abundance of style.
Mexican criminal attorney Rita Castro (Zoe Saldana) has grown burnt out over defending horrible people and never getting the proper recognition for her work. After one high profile acquittal, Rita catches the watchful eye of powerful drug kingpin Manita Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón), who essentially has her kidnapped so he can make an unusual proposition in secret. The imposing, heavily tattooed and ruthless Manita wants Rita’s help in erasing his past, faking his death, and helping him transition in secret into being the woman they always saw themself as being. Rita makes all the proper arrangements, even going as far as having Manita’s wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez), and their two children sent away to the Alps to live in secret. Now living as Emilia, the former criminal attempts to leave their blood soaked past behind by becoming an advocate for victims of cartel related violence. But a wrinkle in Emilia’s new life arises when she begins missing her kids, and Rita is forced into helping concoct new lies in a hope of bringing the family together again, which is especially hard since Jessi remains in the dark about everything and is starting to move on by romancing a lecherous, low level creep (Edgar Ramirez).
From a moral and ethical standpoint, Emilia Pérez is on perpetually shaky ground. Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bone, The Sisters Brothers) wants to praise his titular character (spun off from a character he came across in a novel) for living their true identity, while simultaneously holding most of their actions at arms length with skepticism. Emilia Pérez is a darkly cynical movie, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t thoughtful. The change in Emilia for the better is always obvious, but Audiard always goes out of his way to suggest that a tiger can’t truly change their stripes.
The dangerous mission of Emilia and Rita to give families of gang violence closure is a noble one that uses connections made during the character’s former life for good, but everything that she does to try and get closer to Jessi and her kids is the exact opposite, leading to a constant tonal dissonance. This isn’t helped at all by Jessi being a contemptuous, bratty, under developed character almost throughout the entirety of the film. The two end up cancelling each other out, making the emotional weightiness of the family drama elements curiously out of alignment with the film’s goals. It’s too much stuffing for a movie that’s already a lot to deal with.
But what Emilia Pérez lacks in terms of a cohesive viewpoint and statement of intent Audiard makes up for in style and performance. Trans-performer Gascón mesmerizes throughout, always commanding the screen and embracing all of Emilia’s flaws with empathy, grace, and power, while Saldana gets her best role in years as an audience surrogate that has grown terminally frustrated with the state of the world and the corruption around her (while also only agreeing to change things as long as they selfishly suit her own needs). Gomez makes the most of her uneven character by never making Jessi seem like a withering gangster’s moll, and Ramirez oozes bad vibes as the ex-wife’s unworthy beau.
Many of Audiard’s emotional beats are delivered through the kinetic, colourful musical numbers, which contains a number of hits (most notably Saldana running through the sins of wealthy donors at a charity dinner) and some deeply unfortunate misses (the pure cringe number set at a Bangkok sex reassignment surgery centre, which comes across as out of date and offensive). The score, courtesy of Clément Ducol and Camille, nicely fills out some of the rougher edges to the songs, some of which bear the scars of being written in one language, translated to another, and then subtitled in a third. But when the music is working and the performers are giving their all, Emilia Pérez locks into a sense of visual and narrative purpose that captivates and stimulates.
For a melding of genres that thrive on grand finales, the final act of Emilia Pérez is a surprising let down, especially since the film suddenly decides it wants to add even more elements to its emotional baggage. The introduction of a new love interest for Emilia (played nicely by Adriana Paz) feels forced and inorganic, dragging the film in a direction that never fully pays off to any satisfactory degree. The final stages of Emilia Pérez might include more big set pieces and some action beats, but curiously this flurry of bombast has an air of sombre resignation to it. That speaks to Audiard’s clear belief that he’s making a grand tragedy with Emilia Pérez, but the audience already understands that. Something this staged and opulent doesn’t need more artifice and bloat to make its point. By the end of it all, it’s clear that Emilia Pérez has enough interesting elements to fall just barely on the right side of good, but the clarity of thought and execution makes one realize there are several better movies in here waiting to get out.
Emilia Pérez is now playing in select cities, including at TIFF Lightbox in Toronto. It streams everywhere on Netflix beginning Wednesday, November 13, 2024.
