Emilia Pérez Review: This Trans Crime Thriller/Musical Is 2024's Biggest Swing & Miss [NYFF]

There are big swings, there are swings that sound absolutely disastrous on paper and probably never should've progressed any further from there, and then there's "Emilia Pérez." The very existence of the movie feels like a statement in and of itself: a French-made, auteur-driven drama set almost entirely in Mexico and spoken mostly in Spanish, featuring a protagonist desperate to undergo gender-affirming surgery ... who also happens to be a murderous drug kingpin. The premise alone is provocative enough, yet it doesn't stop there. Oh no, that would be far too much of a cop out for a movie as audacious as this, and one that oftentimes revels in coming across like a bucket of cold water to the face. Not content to merely generate buzz over a trio of bold performances — Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and a mesmerizing Karla Sofía Gascón as the title character — writer/director Jacques Audiard goes even further and mashes up two genres that have absolutely no business coexisting alongside one another.

Yes, the rumors are true. In "Emilia Pérez," a gritty crime thriller somehow functions as an extravagant musical at the same time. Note your initial reaction to hearing that little fun fact. Then consider the benefit of the doubt you're willing to extend to a trans storyline that feels touristy at best and exploitative at worst. Added together, that will likely go a long way towards deciding your own stance on what's almost certain to be the most divisive movie of the year.

The thing about taking big swings, of course, is that one runs the risk of swinging so hard that you either knock it out of the park ... or come right out of your shoes and fall flat on your face. By design, there is simply no middle ground in a movie like this. Choices are made (and, boy, are they made), with the cast and crew having little recourse but to commit. Trivial matters such as "restraint," "sensitivity," and even "good taste" hardly even seem to factor into the equation. What all this amounts to is a behemoth of a movie that's utterly unfiltered, utterly unforgettable, and utterly unafraid to step on toes. Whether that's to its credit or its detriment is a debate that we might just spend the rest of 2024 wrestling over.

"Emilia Pérez" kicks off with an opening image that, for better or worse, sets the tone of what's to come. The looming specter of the movie's musical ambitions are made manifest right from the start, when a trio of mariachi singers (because how else would we know this is meant to take place in Mexico?) usher viewers into a main plot played nearly as straight as anything from "Sicario" or "Breaking Bad." Zoe Saldaña's Rita Moro Castro is ostensibly our main character, a skilled and underappreciated Mexico-based lawyer stuck whiling away her days defending the worst of the worst. It doesn't take long for the first of several full-blown musical numbers to arrive on the scene as Rita struggles to form a compelling opening argument for her latest case. Flashing lights, elaborate choreography, and a playful camera whipping around the action soon follow, none of which should work in an otherwise grounded and serious story. Yet Audiard's tight control of tone, cinematographer Paul Guilhaume's gaudy camerawork, and editor Juliette Welfling's ability to find clarity out of the chaos almost makes it surprisingly easy to go along with whatever else they have up their sleeves.

Until the main cartel plotline kicks into gear, at which point the lines between musical and crime thriller truly begin to blur. Like a page taken out of Saul Goodman's playbook, Rita's tireless work on behalf of her clients inevitably lands her on the radar of the biggest cartel boss in Mexico, Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón). The more skeptical among us might cry foul at the character's awfully uninspired and tropey appearance, tats and gold-laced grills and all. A more generous reading would be that Audiard is intentionally leaning on clichés to disarm and surprise the audience with the much more nuanced arc to come. And when Manitas Del Monte drops the reasoning for wanting to hire Rita as a go-between to procure the best surgeon to help transition, it's delivered in a surprisingly heart-on-its-sleeve monologue and a rhythmic performance of spoken word that drips with sincerity and earnestness.

At this point, viewers might just be willing to believe that this risky venture could, in fact, pay off.

If ever there were a tale of two movies, however, "Emilia Pérez" is it. The soulful first half charts a journey as evocative and measured as anything in Pedro Almodóvar's filmography, an obvious touchstone for much of what unfolds as the film builds to Manitas' transition. There are red flags of melodrama to come, such as when Rita has to convince an Israeli doctor (Mark Ivanir) to actually perform the operation for her anonymous client (bookended by two of the script's more miscalculated — perhaps even disastrous — musical set pieces) or when Rita meets Manitas' wife Jessi (Selena Gomez), who has been left completely in the dark. Yet despite several instances of hammy dialogue and moments of empathy that end up falling flat, the introduction of Emilia Pérez post-surgery is handled with grace and charm. This is largely thanks to Karla Sofía Gascón offering up so much sheer emotion through little more than a glance or her slow physical acceptance of her new identity. Tragically, this comes at the cost of her family as she's forced to fake her own death and send them away to Switzerland for their own wellbeing.

This is also the key point where "Emilia Pérez" takes a notable turn for the worse. When the story skips ahead a number of years and brings Rita and Emilia together for one last request, Audiard loses whatever control he once had of the film's disparate tones. What once had the makings of the boldest and most unique genre movie of the year instead devolves into a cloying telenovela. Emilia understandably wishes to reunite with her family once again and bring them back to Mexico, though the matter is complicated when she has no wish to reveal her true identity to those she loves most.

Through all 132 minutes of its runtime, the film takes an admirable stab at exploring themes of atonement, forgiveness, and identity filtered through an unapologetically trans perspective ... yet constantly trips over its own good intentions. As much as Emilia's family drama plays such an integral role, the entire emotional plight of Jessi and her two young children is given nothing more than the space of two (admittedly well-done and impressionistic) songs. Worse still, Jessi's lack of interiority only ever makes her feel like a convenient prop, particularly when the simmering tension between her and the host she believes to be her late husband's sister finally bubbles over into feelings of anger and betrayal. By the time the script takes another lengthy detour into the plight of missing victims of cartel activity and threatens to overstay its welcome, you almost begin to dread the next self-indulgent and inevitable musical interlude — an unwelcome intrusion that no longer adds much of substance.

In the end, "Emilia Pérez" can't help but feel like a half-completed thought experiment, anchored by the performances of a trio of women all but willing this past the finish line. There's something to be said for a story as ambitious as this taking the film festival circuit by storm, putting someone as undeniably talented as Karla Sofía Gascón in the spotlight for what could very well shape up to be an Oscars run. But a big swing alone isn't enough to keep this leaky boat afloat, leaving us with the bitter reality of unfulfilled potential.

/Film Rating: 5 out of 10

"Emilia Pérez" will release in select theaters November 1, 2024, followed by its streaming premiere on Netflix November 13, 2024.