Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez is a Spanish-language musical about a Mexican cartel boss who fakes her own death to transition, rebuild her life, and reunite with the family she left behind. It is also a procedural thriller, a courtroom drama, a ballad of motherhood, and at one point a literal musical-theatre number in a plastic-surgery consultation room. The film should not work. It mostly does.
Karla Sofía Gascón, herself a trans actress, plays both the pre- and post-transition protagonist with extraordinary physical specificity — two performances in one. Zoe Saldaña plays Rita, the lawyer whose investigation pulls her deeper into Emilia's orbit than her conscience should allow. Selena Gomez plays the wife Emilia leaves behind and who, like much of the audience, does not yet know what happened.
A Film Uncertain of Its Own Register
Emilia Pérez is not a film I loved so much as a film I respect for attempting what it attempts. The musical numbers work in isolation — Camille's original score is beautiful — but the film's shifts in tone can be jarring. Audiard is trying to make a film about trans identity, narco-violence, maternal love, and judicial malfeasance in the same two hours. Sometimes the pieces fit. Sometimes they don't.
The cultural debate the film inspired — particularly around Audiard's limited Spanish-language competence and his depiction of Mexico — is worth engaging. The film is not a definitive statement. It is a striking, flawed, audacious attempt.
Currently at TIFF Bell Lightbox, Cineplex Varsity, Imagine Carlton, and Bloor Hot Docs.