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Emilia Pérez Blends the Best of Cinema

Emilia Pérez. (Featured L-R) Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia Pérez and Zoe Saldaña as Rita Moro Castro in Emilia Pérez. Cr. PAGE 114 - WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS - PATHÉ FILMS - FRANCE 2 CINÉMA.

Emilia Pérez is a sparkling delight. The thing about sparklers, though, is that they flicker rather than constantly shine. Sometimes they wink out and darkness rushes in. That’s to say, for all the colorful glamour there is blackness; though a lot of the film works, occasionally it doesn’t. Yet, it’s within that mix of honest bleakness, vivid pageantry, and infrequent failings that Emilia Pérez becomes a truly unique cinematic experience.

The story starts with Rita Mora Castro, a struggling lawyer played by Zoe Saldaña (Guardians of the Galaxy). She’s recruited by the notorious cartel kingpin Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón) to facilitate faking his death, so he can undergo gender-affirming surgery. Emilia Pérez emerges in the aftermath of their success. However, living her authentic life soon proves perilous for several reasons.

Emilia Pérez. Zoe Saldaña as Rita Moro Castro in Emilia Pérez. Cr. Shanna Besson/PAGE 114 - WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS - PATHÉ FILMS - FRANCE 2 CINÉMA © 2024. Rita walks the neon-soaked streets of Mexico City.
Emilia Pérez. Zoe Saldaña as Rita Moro Castro in Emilia Pérez. Cr. Shanna Besson/PAGE 114 – WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS – PATHÉ FILMS – FRANCE 2 CINÉMA © 2024.

It would be shamefully reductive to call this simply a transgender story. While that’s certainly an important plot point, Emilia Pérez is about a great deal more. Central to the narrative is the notion that one’s identity is composed of many facets. Some of those may overshadow others, especially when absent, but the totality of who she is results in many of the pitfalls Emilia Pérez faces. What makes the film intriguing is that transitioning is only part of the story.

Sins of the past compel Emilia and Rita to face the all too real horror wherein ninety thousand people, perhaps more, have vanished in Mexico due to cartel violence. Consequently, Emilia’s efforts to find at least the remains of lost loved ones results in a strange situation. She is practically a saint to people, yet she’s also the same devil who disappeared untold numbers.

It’s this juggling of moral perspectives that makes Emilia Pérez a compelling picture. In one of the film’s best parts, Rita musically castigates wealthy elites at a charity for their hypocritical help. However, she assisted a notorious cartel leader’s disappearance for fortune, not because she’s a champion of trans rights. Everyone in this movie is selfish in some regard, though it doesn’t stop them from criticizing others. The way people are blind to their own failings is fascinatingly portrayed throughout the film.

Emilia Pérez. (Featured) Selena Gomez as Jessi in Emilia Pérez. Cr. PAGE 114 - WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS - PATHÉ FILMS - FRANCE 2 CINÉMA. Jessi in a nightclub song and dance number.
Emilia Pérez. (Featured) Selena Gomez as Jessi in Emilia Pérez. Cr. PAGE 114 – WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS – PATHÉ FILMS – FRANCE 2 CINÉMA.

Mentioning, at this point, that Emilia Pérez is a musical borders on burying the lede. That’s because it’s the movie’s biggest stumbling block. On one hand, it allows for a hyperbolic, heightened reality. This frequently permits visually as well as verbally poetic explorations of events on screen. Other times, it feels like failed experiments in mixed genres. Some sections are done in a kind of recitative or sprechgesang (talk-singing) common in certain operas, Les Misérables, and seen in the music of Billie Eilish or The B-52s. However, these tend to be the weakest musical aspects, typically resulting in characters simply stating things blandly in overt info dumps.

That said, when the musical aspects work, they are electric. The opening number “El Agato” is a rousing spectacle that ideally sets the stage, highlighting what audiences can expect from the film as well as noting elements of Rita’s character alongside broader problems in Mexico City. “Para” is a lyrically magnificent piece, poetic and informative while also being heartbreaking in its implications. But not everything comes together ideally. Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building) has a solo number in her bedroom that, much like her performance throughout, adds little to the film.

Zoe Saldaña is splendid from start to finish. She’s able to portray a person exhausted by whatever weight she carries, but who presses forward, often for morally questionable reasons. Karla Sofía Gascón (El Señor de los Cielos) is magnificent in a role that features a flawed individual seeking wholeness alongside redemption, while embodying a performance that should never be regarded as duel in any respect. She is the vicious Manitas as much as she is the luminous Emilia. Selena Gomez rounds out the central cast as the estranged wife Jessi Del Monte, but she could be replaced by any number of performers without losing anything. Though she doesn’t hurt the film, she doesn’t make anything about it special.

Emilia Pérez. Zoe Saldaña as Rita Moro Castro in Emilia Pérez. Cr. Shanna Besson/PAGE 114 - WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS - PATHÉ FILMS - FRANCE 2 CINÉMA © 2024. Rita dances at a charity diner, her song ripping to the hypocritical wealthy elites.
Emilia Pérez. Zoe Saldaña as Rita Moro Castro in Emilia Pérez. Cr. Shanna Besson/PAGE 114 – WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS – PATHÉ FILMS – FRANCE 2 CINÉMA © 2024.

Director Jaques Audiard has put together several impressive pictures over a career spanning decades. His films such as A Prophet (2009), Dheepan (2015), and The Sisters Brothers (2018) have all garnered multiple award nominations. His ostentatious style utilizing “French Cool” never forgets to be entertainment. And Emilia Pérez is a stellar example of those sensibilities.

At times the movie is flamboyantly surreal, while others are gritty grounded drama. Occasionally there are flashes of telenovela, soap operatic absurdity. Yet, these slip easily into the heightened reality of musical theater, especially when somber notions come to the forefront. The result is a mashup of genres from all corners of cinema.

It would be lying to say it always works. However, the failings flicker infrequently. More often the movie speeds by them into sections which come across better. At the very least, the experimentation is typically commendable and guaranteed to inspire others down the line. Whether they improve on this groundwork or fail is another matter entirely. For now, Jaques Audiard has pioneered a new blend of cinematic stylization well-worth exploring, gritty musical noir.

Emilia Pérez. (L-R) Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia Pérez and Adriana Paz as Epifanía in Emilia Pérez. Cr. Shanna Besson/PAGE 114 - WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS - PATHÉ FILMS - FRANCE 2 CINÉMA © 2024. Emilia comforts a woman who will is overwhelmed to find herself a widow, yet happy to have lost a bad husband.
Emilia Pérez. (L-R) Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia Pérez and Adriana Paz as Epifanía in Emilia Pérez. Cr. Shanna Besson/PAGE 114 – WHY NOT PRODUCTIONS – PATHÉ FILMS – FRANCE 2 CINÉMA © 2024.

Emilia Pérez is the kind of movie people should see even if they don’t think they’re going to like it. The film’s messages aren’t exactly what one may expect. Cinematically, its blend of elements, some of which seem disparate, can catch a viewer off guard. Narratively, it’s a powerful story that shines a light on a very real horror story unfolding in Mexico. Two stellar performances carry the picture to its thought-provoking conclusion. Being a musical doesn’t always help the film soar, but those aspects do lift it off the ground more than a straightforward drama might.

Emilia Pérez is, if nothing else, entirely unique. It’s what another movie wanted to be but failed to even come close to. Few films are so honesty with flaws, its own and its characters. For that alone, it deserves a watch.

Written by Jay Rohr

J. Rohr is a Chicago native with a taste for history and wandering the city at odd hours. In order to deal with the more corrosive aspects of everyday life he writes the blog www.honestyisnotcontagious.com and makes music in the band Beerfinger. His Twitter babble can be found @JackBlankHSH.

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