Emilia Pérez (2024)

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Who is Emilia Pérez? I honestly couldn’t tell you. Despite being the supposed heart of Jacques Audiard’s film, her character is buried beneath a mountain of half-baked ideas and a nonsensical narrative. The film lurches from one heavy-handed theme to another, tackling transgender identity, cartel drama, and a forced love story without ever giving any of them the depth or sincerity they deserve. Instead of offering insight, it’s a confusing mess, leaving us to wonder if the filmmakers even understood what they were trying to say.

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The story follows Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón), a cartel kingpin who fakes his death and undergoes gender reassignment surgery to escape his violent past and live as Emilia Pérez. With the help of lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña), Manitas stages a new life and starts fresh. Their relationship evolves into something more complicated, and Emilia reconnects with her estranged family – wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and children – while still being haunted by the ghosts of her criminal past.

What emerges is an incoherent mishmash of clichés that feels less like a story and more like a series of random ideas thrown together in a drunken brainstorm. Transgender issues? Sure. Cartel drama? Throw it in. Musical numbers? Why not? The ambition is obvious, but the execution is laughable. It’s a tonal disaster that squanders every attempt at serious drama.

The musical numbers are some of the most bewildering aspects of the film. Just when you think the movie might settle into a rhythm, characters start breaking into song – about surgery or redemption, no less. The transitions are jarring, and the campy, over-the-top execution only diminishes whatever emotional weight the film tries to build. Instead of elevating the material, these musical interludes make everything feel absurd.

The performances, while solid, are mostly wasted on the film’s erratic script. Zoe Saldaña delivers a strong, grounded performance as Rita, and at times, her character feels more important than Emilia’s. Karla Sofía Gascón gives a vulnerable portrayal of Emilia, but the film barely scratches the surface of her transgender journey, leaving her character feeling like an afterthought. In a moment when transgender issues should be handled with care and nuance, the film squanders the opportunity, instead using Emilia’s transition as a plot device, never giving her struggles the depth they deserve. The movie quickly abandons its protagonist for the cheap thrills of cartel drama. As for Selena Gomez, she’s saddled with a completely underdeveloped character, in turn making her role feel completely irrelevant.

The disconnect here likely stems from director Jacques Audiard. For a film that supposedly deals with Mexican culture and cartel dynamics, it feels strangely detached. Shot in France by a French director, the film leans on tired clichés and shallow portrayals of Mexico, turning what could be an authentic exploration into a caricature. The result is a lazy cultural mishmash that undermines its own potential.

There are flashes of visual creativity, especially in the staging of musical numbers, but they’re drowned out by the film’s misguided ambition. At times, the production quality feels cheap, as if the movie’s grand ideas couldn’t find their way out of the chaos of its funding and creative vision. With at least five production companies involved, the result is a disjointed mess of competing styles.

Emilia Pérez has already made waves, winning accolades at Cannes and generating awards-season buzz. With its bold performances and outlandish genre experimentation, it ticks all the boxes for Oscar-bait – but it’s hard to imagine how anyone outside the industry could find this anything other than a baffling, disorienting experience. At a time when transgender issues are front and center, the film’s lack of nuance, coupled with its ridiculous plot, makes it feel more like a misguided caricature than a meaningful story. Ultimately, Emilia Pérez will likely be remembered more for its absurdity than for any artistic merit it might claim to have.