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This review contains spoilers.
Having seen the flat and uninspiring trailer for Jacques Audiard’s Spanish language musical drama, “Emilia Pérez,” I entered the theater with pretty low expectations, though also keen to see the vibrant and beautiful Mexico City on film.
Despite gorgeous cinematography, the film got off to a rather tepid start and I guessed my low expectations were well-founded. But then it rapidly picked up steam and soon became a riveting experience. Audiard’s big, bold, audacious creation surprised me in the best of ways. The music and choreography wove a fascinating tale with such nuance and finesse that I couldn’t imagine the movie with spoken dialogue alone.
The titular character, played by Karla Sofía Gascón, is also the chillingly frightening drug cartel jefe Juan "Manitas" Del Monte (both played by Gascón) whose life as a face-tattooed, metal-toothed, ultra masculine purveyor of violence and death is transformed by sex reassignment surgery with the help of a disillusioned but talented lawyer, Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña). He hires her to help him find a surgeon skilled enough to perform the operation. It’s an offer Rita can’t exactly refuse, and she’s soon traveling the world using Manitas’s vast resources to seek out the right physician for the job.
Rita first travels to Bangkok where a song and dance number, “La vaginoplastia,” whirls into being; then to Tel Aviv where she meets Doctor Wasserman (Mark Ivanir). They discuss Manitas’s case in a duet, “Lady,” a brief, beautiful quodlibet sung in English which was one of my favorites. Wasserman wishes to meet his potential patient before agreeing to do the surgery, and so the two are off to Mexico. (All meetings with Manitas are in a middle-of-nowhere rocky desert, at night, and with black hoods covering his visitors’ heads during the journey.)
After Manitas becomes Emilia Pérez, Rita arranges to have his wife and children become Swiss nationals, passports and all, under the pretense that Manitas is in hiding and they will be safe in Switzerland. Emilia stages her former self’s death. The infamous drug lord’s demise is broadcast on television. Manita’s wife, Jessi, played by Selena Gomez, is devastated by the news.
Rita moves on with her life and new riches, relocating to London. Four years later, at a swanky dinner party, she’s introduced to Emilia, whom at first she does not recognize. When she does, she assumes she’s to be killed as the last loose end in the Manitas-to-Emilia metamorphosis; however, it turns out that Emilia misses her wife and children and wishes to be reunited with them in Mexico City. Rita’s legal prowess is enlisted once again. And it’s at this turning point that the film rockets into a terribly complex web of human interrelationships, accompanied, as nearly every scene up to this point already has been, by brilliant music and dance.
Karla Sofía Gascón has already been lauded as the film’s big star (and I’m sure she’ll collect further accolades in this new year). But for my money it’s Zoe Saldaña who shines brightest. Don’t get me wrong, Gascón is fantastic. But Saldaña’s tense, smoldering presence kills. And her musical ability and dancing talent burn through the screen. One especially enthralling and exciting number, “El Mal,” sees Saldaña flit agilely and balletically through the ballroom of a Mexico City gala in what could be considered the film’s showstopper.
All the performances are very good if not completely great. But it’s the ensemble’s interactions with one another that make the movie a success. Combine those dramatic interactions with the excellent original score by Clément Ducol and Camille, Audiard’s intricate screenplay, and Paul Guilhaume’s cinematography, and the whole enchilada is delicious.
Filmmaking that incorporates musical performances into a story is a risky endeavor. We’ve seen too many movies that are essentially Broadway musicals in celluloid form. But “Emilia Pérez” is much braver than that. Audiard’s risk-taking pays off. It's the kind of film that goes just a bit beyond its story, causing one to think about it long after leaving the theater.
