Placing Emilia Pérez, destined to be one of this year’s most audaciously entertaining films, into a single genre won’t do justice to the movie, nor to anyone’s expectations. “Musical,” for its most obvious elements of melodic pleas and emotional, synchronized movement, doesn’t feel quite right; the songs aren’t positioned in the spotlight to anthem-ize over the more powerful parts that make up the film. “Oscar bait,” a contentious term for the usual paint-by-number pieces that come to play at a certain time of the year, can be misleading, because the events that occur in Emilia Pérez do not follow a path found in the natural course of this universe. “Good movie” also might not even be the correct term if one thinks too hard about it. Yet, it is so outrageously fun that I can’t help but enjoy myself to the very end.
None of the above is meant to be derogatory or to speak down from highbrow standards. From the opening, Emilia Pérez erases the guidelines for a normal movie, which is par for the course when it’s a four-act opera about a good-hearted lawyer and a cartel lord who longs to live an authentic life. It’s the components taken from different genres that create the kind of world where anything goes, as long as the performers are allowed to flourish in its wake.
Most of the film’s histrionic exaggerations can be forgiven through Zoë Saldaña’s performance, which is, plainly speaking, the role of her lifetime. As one of the richest miners of modern IPs (Avatar, MCU, Star Trek), you can also be forgiven for not knowing that her talent has been recently uncovered as she portrays Rita, the film’s downtrodden lawyer. The film opens at her most despondent and cynical: defending guilty murderers and working for ill-prepared bosses in northern Mexico.
After winning a notoriously publicized case of spousal murder, Rita is kidnapped by Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón), one of the country’s biggest cartel lords, who asks for help in re-emerging (or disappearing, in the eyes of loved ones and law enforcement) in a new life as Emilia. When the character first details the plan through the teeth-gritted “El Encuentro” with the serpentine vocal rhythm of Travis Scott, you are taken aback from the coldness and seized with the possible premise of using a gender transition storyline as a deceitful gimmick. But when Gascón’s voice softly sings for the desire to desire again, like the chance for honey-like skin, within the same scene, the near-wave of tears should be enough to convince you of Emilia‘s good intentions.
At this point, we are only about fifteen minutes into the movie. Rita organizes the affirmation procedure with a surgeon from Tel Aviv and stows Emilia’s family, composed of Jessi (Selena Gomez) and their two sons, away to Switzerland. The family then tearfully hears of Manitas’ death on national news, which allows Emilia to cleanly cut attachments from her previous life. After she has been given a comfortable sum of money for her assistance, Rita establishes a satisfying career in London. Unfortunately, ghosts come back to haunt. Four years later, Emilia returns with another favor: to be reunited with her sons. At this point, you will start to wonder if there is a possibility that a lawyer could be underpaid.
Some of the film’s bewildered magic might be lost if you think about its synoptic foundation deriving from a book, which means that the story has been molded by pre-planned words and thoughts and edited by published eyes. But as the title of that book demands (Écoute, or “listen” in French), Emilia Pérez is a sensory-driven experience. Listening to different voices, from mournful lamentations to the syrupy voice of a child singing about mezcal and guacamole, guides the pen to draw this world in societal and individual strokes. The lighting and color grading speaks of noir thrillers, which is an ambitious choice for a film that feeds on compassion rather than vengeance and the motive of doing good from repentance.
Through the entanglement of passion and righteous law, it is a testament to the film that we can feel the powerful relationship between Rita and Emilia. The lawyer-client relationship stays true throughout the film, sometimes in snarky reminders (Rita juggling two angry phone conversations between Emilia and Jessi is of Olympian skill), but it also morphs into a pinky-promised criminal sisterhood when they open a non-profit organization to connect families with missing members. Whether it’s dancing on top of tables at a charity dinner or having a singing-argument with a doctor, Saldaña’s performance is the sort of barefaced incredulity of someone who understands this role without judgment. Her stickler for the right thing is complementary to Gascón’s wielding with heartbreak, guile, and comedic one-liners in her scenes, so much that even when Emilia’s hypocrisy and high-risk behavior starts to seep from her safety net, her yearning to be true to herself is still not unbearable to watch. It’s no wonder that the women of this movie were collectively awarded Best Actress at this year’s Cannes (in regard to Gomez, I stand by the opinion that the jury panel would have had a harder time explaining why two of the three main leads deserve the recognition).
Diamond roles in the rough are not so rare, and I could only hope that in taking in the good, the crazy, and the crazy good, Emilia Pérez is one to enjoy in full stride. It’s a breakout film of stupendous acts and a beacon of extravagance among slow-paced drones of forgettable films.
Emilia Pérez
2024
dir. Jacques Audiard
132 min.
Now playing in 35mm @ Coolidge Corner Theatre, and digitally @ Kendall Square Cinema and Alamo Drafthouse Seaport.
Streaming on Netflix beginning 11/13
