Hal Kitchen
What with Joker: Folie a Deux and The End it’s been quite a week for unlikely movie musicals and Emilia Perez might just be the unlikeliest of all. Adapted by director Jacques Audaird from his own libretto, which was in turn based on the 2018 novel Ecoute by Boris Razon, Emilia Perez is a vibrant, messy and bravura passion project. Audaird seems to me to be underrated in most film circles. Maybe I only think so because I never think of him in those terms myself, but when I think back on his catalogue, going back as far as early crime dramas See How They Fall, Read My Lips and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, through mainstream breakthroughs like A Prophet, Rust and Bone and Palme d’Or winner Dheepan to more modern work like The Sisters Brothers and Paris, 13th District, he has been quietly turning out some of the most diverse, modern and inspired dramas of the last 30 years. His films are bold, intimate and intense yet have an authenticity and realism that most far tamer and more naturalistic films never achieve, thanks in no small part to his regular and ongoing collaborations with Juliette Welfling, who is in my view, the best editor in town. And so, thus contextualized, you may take it as high praise indeed that I am tempted to call Emilia Perez his masterpiece.
The extremely unpredictable narrative kicks off with underappreciated legal counsel Rita (Zoe Saldana) receiving an anonymous job offer. Disenfranchised with her current job getting well-connected clients off the hook, she pursues the offer and finds herself tasked with…and I hesitate to spoil this plot point as you will never guess what she’s going to be tasked with or where the movie will go from here. It’s even a spoiler to say who Saldana’s co-stars Selena Gomez and Karla Sofia Gascon will be playing. All I’ll say is, trust! Trust that the movie knows what it’s doing and go with it, because you’ll be rewarded with one of the most graceful, surprising, touching and inspiring experiences you’ll have all year. But, you will have to trust it. It will take you places you’re not expecting, but also through an epiphanic story of death, tragedy, rebirth, redemption and above all of love.
I’m not going to hype it up as a crazy off the wall experience, because everything that happens in Emilia Perez is organically rooted in the emotions of its beautiful, nuanced, entrancing central characters, it’s not chaotic or irreverent, it’s tactful and sensitive. As such, it wouldn’t work one bit if the performances weren’t en pointe. Fortunately, Saldana, Gascon, Gomez and Adriana Paz—who all shared the Best Actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for their performances—know they’ve been handed the roles of their lives and all three women are truly sensational. Even Gomez who I’ve long dismissed for her bland and insipid music career reveals astonishing feeling and intensity here. Turns out she can command a microphone when given the right material by songwriter Camille and composer Clement Ducol. Saldana I’ve long believed was wasted covered in green make-up or blue CG body paint, here she gets to show her true colors and is an absolute force of nature, in the musical sequences especially, absolutely slaying with Damien Jalet’s choreography. But perhaps it’s Gascon who deserves the fullest praise for her remarkable and revelatory performance in the title role. Famed mostly for Spanish telenovelas, she displays a subtlety and ferocity that perfectly articulates the complexity of the role Audaird has written. Between them, this central trio give an extremely deliberate and yet beautifully generous cross-section of modern womanhood, as well as fully realized and sympathetic individual characters. It was an excellent call by the Cannes jury to have them share the award, and to include Paz who, though her role is significantly smaller, does a wonderful job with her small apportion of screentime, saying so much with just a handful of scenes towards the end. It would look very well for the Academy members if, as the bookies anticipate, both Gascon and Saldana earn their first Oscar nominations for their performances (Saldana should’ve been nominated years ago for Avatar, there I said it).
People will certainly question the use of a musical to tell this particular narrative, but Audaird absolutely knows what he’s doing when it comes to staging these set pieces and making every step count, taking to the genre and its set pieces like a veteran, once again revealing new strengths. Perhaps it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, he’s shown a virtuoso’s understanding of musical numbers and their effective implementation before, I still don’t hear Katy Perry’s “Firework” the same since seeing how he used it in Rust and Bone. The production and sound design are ferocious, when that children’s choir comes in with the refrain of “we are here”…? Chills.
I can hardly fault the artistic vision going into, and coming out of, Emilia Perez. Of course a happier, more reconciliatory ending would’ve been my preference, and that one song near the start—if you’ve seen it you know the one—was maybe a step too far off the deep end, but I still think both those elements were included with the best of intentions. No, I really can’t oversell Emelia Perez enough. What a joyous, gracious, exhilarating, curious and inspiring piece of melodrama it is and a glorious showcase of its contributors’ talent.
