Emilia Pérez (França, 2024)
Original title: Emilia Pérez
Director: Jacques Audiard
Writer/Screenplay: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain and Nicolas Livecchi
Main cast: Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir, Eduardo Aladro and Emiliano Hasan
Runtime: 130 minutes (2°10’)
A French director directing and writing a musical about a Mexican drug lord who fakes his own death in order to pursue the life he always wanted as a trans woman. This call has all the potential in the universe to become a completely problematic plot, but thanks to a surprising approach to gender issues and an excellent cast, Emilia Pérez manages to captivate its audience.
Rita (Zoe Saldana) is a lawyer frustrated with her life working for men who never give her the recognition she deserves. So, when Manitas del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón) proposes to help her in the process of changing her life so that she can finally express herself in her correct gender for a huge amount of money, she quickly accepts. But in this situation on screen, there are two unexpected elements: the first is the narrative itself, which becomes increasingly profound; the second is that all of this is presented amidst great singing and dancing scenes worthy of musicals from the golden era of Hollywood.
The biggest issue with the film is that its musical scenes are excellent, meticulously thought out and manage to take the audience on a long journey that would perhaps be inaccessible with a more realistic language. If exactly the same subject were approached through a classic drama, everything would become implausible, but we take the liberty of extrapolation as an audience when a common scene suddenly becomes a beautiful song. With this, we understand issues that were previously inaccessible, such as this character’s need to live her life as she wishes and even the more universal questioning about the consequences of actions we have committed in the past being part of our present as much as the version we currently wish to show to the world. More than talking about the specific trajectory of this trans woman, the film talks about life transformations and being responsible with our emotions – and the emotions of those of the people we love.
So, for example, as a Latina viewer, I often feel anti-colonialist rage at seeing an appropriation of a story that would only be possible in Mexico being made by a French director and, even worse, being filmed in a studio in France. But on the other hand, I feel happy that a film that plays with the soap opera genre has absolute technical control over what’s on screen, dosing the melodrama and giving voice to the Latine artists who are there, acting and singing. What causes the most confusion is how much it tries to do in one take, including many meaningless subplots that extend the work beyond its ideal length. The use of Selena Gomez as a lure for the audience is also strange, with the actress and singer seeming out of place in a work in which she could fit perfectly.
Saldana’s performance in Spanish is incredible, in a role with greater emotional depth than the ones we are used to seeing her in, and even in another language. In addition to her ability to sing and dance, which may surprise you since she isn’t known for them, she manages to bring the complexity and deep friendship that are necessary for the role. Gascón is, in itself, a phenomenon. Having an actress who has transitioned genders playing a role as a trans woman is already a milestone in itself, especially since the film does not try to stereotype her in relation to gender.
I am happy that the film is raising some flags that may be essential to creating a less LGBTQIA+phobic cinema, and it does so in a way that is both entertaining and profound. Seeing how a conservative society like Brazil, which continues to throw stones at Geni in the 21st century, will react to her is a personal curiosity of mine.
