Emilia Pérez (2024)

Jacques Audiard | 2hr 10min

In some bizarre, self-aware manner, there is an internal logic to the campy sensationalism of Emilia Pérez. Jacques Audiard is unabashedly committed to his ludicrous premise – a ruthless cartel kingpin hires a lawyer to help procure gender-affirming surgery, fake their death, and establish a new life as a woman. It’s the kind of pulpy melodrama one might find in a telenovela, or a Pedro Almodóvar film that revels in its flamboyant queerness. Perhaps the Spanish auteur might have even had the tact to smooth over its wild swings between romance and crime thriller genres, or to polish its tackier elements. Jacques Audiard is certainly no hack, and there is some merit in his outlandish ambition, yet in his hands the tonal misfires present keep this film from ever settling on a coherent direction.

Among Emilia Pérez’s greatest inconsistencies are its musical numbers, vibrantly fusing Latin, pop, and hip-hop styles. At their best, Audiard’s choreography intensifies Rita’s moral conflicts working in law, turning strangers on the street into backup dancers and singers who accompany her internal monologue in ‘El alegato’. There is a music video-like quality to these sequences, featuring high-contrast lighting and dynamic camerawork which match the characters’ heightened emotional realities, while acknowledging darker social issues at play. Mexico’s epidemic of disappearances in particular drives the tension behind the ensemble number ‘Para’, and in the show-stopping ‘El Mal’, Rita’s attack upon wealthy charity benefactors who secretly collude with cartels delivers a sharp, uncomfortable edge.

The foul taste left behind by the outright abysmal musical numbers is harder to reckon with. Pitchy ensemble singers aren’t helped by the jarring placement of songs right in the middle of regular conversations, and awkward lyrics give us clunky gems like “If he’s a wolf, she’ll be a wolf / If he’s the wolf, you’ll be his sheep.” That the low point arrives with the song ‘La Vaginoplastia’ should be no surprise to those who witnessed its ascension to viral scorn, and rightly so. Where most musical numbers serve some sort of emotional expression, it is tough to identify what exactly this is trying to communicate besides the details of gender-affirming surgery. Even this attempt is so inane though that the lyrics might as well be written by school students, skimming through a textbook and listing off whatever terms might suggest they have any idea of what they are talking about.

At the very least, Audiard’s writing of Emilia herself does not flatten her entirely into a one-dimensional transgender cliché, but neither is she a terribly consistent character. The regret she carries from her past as a gangster continues to haunt her, motivating her to start a non-profit which identifies and returns bodies of cartel victims to their families. It is a strange attempt at absolving her of guilt, and one that fizzles out after she begins a relationship with a client. The narrative thread that goes down the path of kidnapping, ransom, and a shootout takes her story in a far more tantalising direction, playing each beat with both total sincerity and thrilling sensationalism. If nothing else, Emilia Pérez swings hard for its camp, gaudy melodrama, and there is something worth admiring in that audaciousness – even if it never quite escapes the awkward inelegance of Audiard’s constant formal blunders.

Emilia Pérez is coming soon to Netflix.