Emilia Perez

dir: Jacques Audiard

2024

It’s almost disappointing. I was promised a disaster, and instead I just got a flick that wasn’t that bad.

Despite this flick’s baffling level of awards success, it’s important to point out that critically, this flick has been savaged the way that a pack of hyenas bring down a wounded wildebeest by chasing it down and nipping at it until it collapses in exhausted defeat. The most positive review I’ve read of it said something like “it’s okay, but the songs are not memorable at all.”

Oh, did I decline to mention that it’s a musical?

Also, despite the fact that it’s been nominated for a Titanic or Lord of the Rings level of Academy Awards, I don’t think there’s a single person from Mexico that had a positive thing to say about it, despite the fact the film is mostly set there (even though there’s not a second of actual footage from there, other than probably some aerial / drone shots).

It’s made by a French director, with no Mexican actors, mostly but not exclusively in Spanish, with the actual leads played by Americans. And it purports to be about someone from Mexico involved in the cartel wars wanting to turn over a new leaf (in so many ways), but it doesn’t really treat any of its big ticket items with any depth or nuance.

And, yes, it’s historic that Karla Sofía Gascón has been nominated in the Best Actress category, as the first trans woman to receive such an “honour”, but can anyone that’s seen this movie, including the people that didn’t completely hate it, say that her performance was in any way better than Zoe Saldana’s performance, or even that of Selena Gomez? Gascón’s performance is at best subdued in comparison to the others, and that’s being generous.

It’s a weird story, but not overly so. I think its treatment of gender dysphoria, gender affirmation and the trans lived experience is not deep, but at least it’s somewhat respectful? I am not sure it says much beyond its central character, as in, I’m not sure it’s making bigger statements about the benefits of gender affirming surgery or that trans rights should be supported because they’re human rights, other than saying “it was right and necessary for this character, but it’s not a magic wand that solves all the problems that a person could have in life.”

And that’s putting it mildly. It’s such an unusual story that its complications far outweigh the experiences that most trans people would get to experience in their daily lives (especially now, since that orange fuckwit regained power in the States, and has declared open season on America’s trans people), and they’re mostly only there for ironic effect and plot twists later on.

The character who the film is named after doesn’t have difficulty funding her gender affirming care, or having people accept her in the workplace, or being constantly deadnamed or demeaned by family: in fact, she faces absolutely nothing negative at all (at least until the film’s ironic ending). It’s unlikely, and simplistic, but this is a musical, after all.

It’s not like I learned anything useful or accurate about tuberculosis from watching Moulin Rouge either, but that would be just as unfair as an expectation.

The real main character is Rita (the great Zoe Saldaña), a lawyer, who’s very good at her job, but her job is pure evil (successfully conning juries into releasing obviously guilty clients). Even if she is ethically compromised, through no fault of her own she ends up having a meeting with the head of a Mexican drug cartel, who essentially tells her that by meeting with them, she has already agreed to represent their interests and their goals.

That cartel boss, played in heavy make up by Karla Sofía Gascón, tells the lawyer their plan – not only to transition, but to change appearance entirely, fake their death, and relocate their wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and kids to Switzerland, in case their enemies come after them.

More importantly, Manitas speaks of the severe gender dysphoria they experienced growing up, and how if they’d been allowed to receive gender affirming care earlier in life, maybe they wouldn’t have ended up rising to power as the head of a massive and massively evil organisation responsible not only for all the misery and countless deaths from its drugs, but all the deaths in consolidating and maintaining such an empire.

It’s… one way to look at it. Rita has misgivings, but also doesn’t want to keep doing what she’s doing, and there is a lot of money on offer. Possibly the worst song in the film occurs when she tours a Bangkok clinic and the staff sing about all of the “-plasty” surgeries that they can provide a prospective client. It’s not only the worst song in this film, but it’s possibly worse than many other songs in many other musicals excluding Cats, where the songs were the least of that atrocity’s problems.

Following on from that, one of the weakest arguments in the flick occurs when she’s trying to convince an Israeli surgeon to do the work necessary, Rita (unconvincingly) drops a bunch of clangers ostensibly arguing in favour of gender affirming care along the lines of “change bodies and you’ll change society, change society and you’ll change souls, change souls and you’ll change internet providers” or something that’s about as punchy or credible. But somehow it works, and the surgeries and all the other precious little things are organised and go off without a hitch…

Four years later, Rita is having dinner with friends and colleagues at a London restaurant, when a woman introduces herself, and they chat, having recognised each other’s accents. Wouldn’t you know it, they’re both from Mexico.

I daresay they have a few other things in common.

Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofia Gascón) emerges into the world, as a fully formed, fully self-determined being, and, claiming to be a cousin of Manitas’, compels Jessi and the kids to come back to Mexico, so they can all be together again, though without telling anyone who she really is. After receiving a random flyer from a woman desperately trying to find her son, Emilia also decides that the way to keep herself busy, and keep Rita engaged, is to start an NGO that helps track down all the people murdered by the various gangs and cartels, and reunite their remains with their families.

I mean, that’s brilliant. The one serious problem Mexico has is a lack of internationally funded NGOs / charities.

It’s… not a bad thing to be doing. After reading about what has transpired over the decades in Mexico, and watching films like Identifying Features or Noise (Ruido) a couple of years ago, it’s gutting to know about the countless hundreds of thousands who have disappeared in Mexico, sometimes exterminated by the cartels, sometimes by the human traffickers / coyote gangs that pretend to bring people safely into the United States, sometimes by the cops / government itself, it’s a fraught, weighted topic. It’s that lack of certainty for so many families that hurts, the fact that many of them suspect, but never get the closure they might crave.

I don’t know if it's dealt with properly or deftly here, but it is something “real” compared to the melodrama that we are surrounded by. Each character has their motivation, but only one of them has a real restriction, being Jessi, who sings about her golden handcuffs / cage. Emilia unconsciously tries to control her despite “moving” on herself (when she starts a relationship with a widow who was not looking forward to finding out about her husband), but that’s more about the kids, who she cannot bear to be without.

One could argue that there is a certain inevitability to the way the tragedy rolls out, when Emilia shows us that you can take the woman out of the cartel, but you can’t totally get the thug out of the woman, when she reverts to a scorched earth monster in order to keep her kids close, but you’re left, even as I was, with tears in my eyes thinking “it didn’t have to go like this”.

I defy the critics who said all the songs were crap in this flick. Sure, mostly they’re not that memorable, and are entirely devoid of the sorts of hooks that people crave in their musicals (apparently), but I thought the one Jessi gets singing about her “camino” or path is okay, and most of Rita’s are okay, especially the one about all the corrupt motherfuckers at the fundraising event, and the glorious little song sung by the son who recognises his father’s scent on Emilia, oh wow that’s a heartbreaker. And when a very distraught Emilia sings about her first memories of meeting and loving Jessi, who cannot figure out what Emilia’s saying until it’s way too late, oh, there’s something in my eye again…

I enjoyed the film, honestly. Not all of it works, but it’s neither the catastrophe some people imply, nor the masterpiece others claim. Karla Sofia Gascón is formidable, compelling, and sometimes frightening, and it’s lovely that she’s being celebrated and such, but I honestly think Saldaña’s and Gomez’s performances are way stronger. For my money it’s pointless having to pick apart minutia between them, because they’re all great in service of the (odd) story.

As to whether the overall flick is insulting to Mexico in general or Mexicans specifically, well, only they can judge. I don’t think it sets out to be insulting, but then again no-one is arguing that it’s a culturally comprehensive or sensitive portrayal of a country and culture that they’re not really interested in beyond the setting.

Bloody French, eh? They’re almost as bad as Americans.

7 times I am not sure I know the Spanish words for “Change your hearts or die” to all the transphobes out there out of 10

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“To listen is to accept.”
- “Bingo.” - Emilia Pérez