Emilia Pérez is a breath of fresh air, redefining what can be called a musical, taking on gritty subject matter and swings for the fences, but unfortunately not all of them landing.
The film centers around a burnt out criminal lawyer based in Mexico named Rita (Zoe Saldana) being dragged into the world of the Mexican cartel, and having to follow transgender former cartel kingpin Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofia Gascon) in her journey to help the victims of enforced disappearances. Remarkably, despite having several Hollywood actors in the cast, the film chooses to be a Spanish-language musical crime comedy drama, which definitely catches the audience by surprise at every turn.
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The elephant in the room is definitely the film’s choice to tell a Mexican cartel story as a musical. Throughout the past quarter, the world was gifted with about four films which, for better or worse, relied on the songs in their films, if not outright identifying as a musical. Staying true to how we view and appreciate the music on those films as a make or break factor in their identity, Emilia Pérez failed to deliver on this aspect. Understandably, the songs, and even the identity of this film as a musical, may possibly be the biggest point of discussion for fans and critics. While inspired, the musical numbers are not perfectly executed in a technical sense, and they are not particularly moving either. Many of the scenes which turned out to be musical numbers may have the audience questioning whether or not the scenes had to be sung at all. In its many flaws, the songs are undeniably still innovative, genre-bending, and outlandish. It is rare for me to have found one word that may accurately describe how the songs in this film came across, and that is that they are fun – flawed but fun nonetheless.
The world is better off having a genre-subversive Mexican telenovela comedy drama musical that is Emilia Pérez.
The plot of the film can be described as a telenovela with a gender twist. In essence, the plot follows one of the most prominent cartel kingpins of Mexico who decides to throw it all away and undergoes a gender affirmation surgery from being the male Manitas into the titular female Emilia Pérez. As Emilia Pérez, she decides to put all of her efforts in conducting a wide-scale search for victims of enforced disappearances.
Now, the angle of transgender empowerment and how the plot sheds a light into the victims of enforced disappearances in Mexico due to organized criminal activity hones in on the important narrative of the lack of law enforcement, and the consequent cry for justice in Mexico which has been going on for decades. I would believe it is also a personal fight for transgender actress Karla Sofia Gascon who is a proud advocate of transgender rights and women empowerment. However, the quality of the plot grinds to a halt beyond this point. First, there is an apparent lack of motive for a great majority of the characters in the story. What was the reason for Rita to continue to be in service of Emilia Pérez, a known criminal who has destroyed countless lives in Mexico and which Rita, as an astute lawyer, was meant to loathe? How did the change from Manitas to Emilia Pérez service the plot moving forward?
Under a microscope, the story seems to split into two; the one being the empowerment of Manitas, who felt trapped under the circumstances of being born male and presumedly forced to a life of crime, and into her eventual successful transition and emancipation into Emilia Pérez, and the other being Emilia Pérez feeling guilt for the damages to society she caused and thus putting an effort in addressing victims of enforced disappearances. In this manner, the two plots do not flow and the motives of the characters are not clear enough to make a substantiated connection beyond convenient speculation. Either the characters needed to be fleshed out further to crystalize their motives or the audience is forced to fill in the blanks.
Zoe Saldana’s portrayal of Rita became the shining light that made all the scenes sparkle.
Justice, a core theme of the story, also stands on thin ice. The story asked a lot from the audience in its attempt to package justice. It would appear towards the latter half of the film that the audience is meant to emphatize with Emilia Pérez, both in her struggles to seek out victims of enforced disappearances, and in the instance when she was kidnapped and tortured. However, the sense of justice at this aspect of the film is not aligned. Her efforts on enforced disappearances does not, and should not, write off her crimes as a cartel kingpin. Further, despite Rita’s attempts at extracting empathy for the climax of the film where Emilia Pérez is kidnapped and tortured, it is a stretch to expect the audience to then view Emilia Pérez as the protagonist or damsel in distress that needs saving.
Finally, despite the shaky plot, and perhaps questionable sense of justice, actress Zoe Saldana’s portrayal of Rita became the shining light that made all the scenes sparkle. Here, we see Saldana both raw and unhinged, successfully conveying the exhaustion of working for a failing judicial system, and the frustration of enabling, and then emphatizing, with the criminal Emilia Pérez. The film successfully showed us the unbridled acting skills of Saldana, and it is exciting to anticipate what she may have for us in store in the future. Gascon’s portrayal as Emilia Pérez is equally as compelling. As an actress not yet known in mainstream hollywood, it would not be a surprise for Gascon to make a splash in the same manner that Lily Gladstone did from last year’s Scorcese masterpiece.
There is much to like about Emilia Pérez, but it presents a lot more themes and plot twists demanding of discussion. Emilia Pérez is a film that, for better or worse, will be divisive and will encourage plenty of heated debates. But at the end of the day, the world is still better off having a genre-subversive Mexican telenovela comedy drama musical that is Emilia Pérez.
Score: 7/10
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