January 23, 2025 · Watch the official trailer
Five weeks from now, the true power of an expanding international voting segment of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be tested.
In the aftermath of increasing efforts to diversify its membership, the Academy has seen a push in recent years away from traditional Oscar fare and towards a wider array of cinema that might not always appeal to American moviegoers.
Last week, an international production mixing multiple genres with dialogue almost entirely in Spanish led the pack with 13 Academy Award nominations as French writer/director Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” cemented its status as a front runner for best picture.
The film which blends crime drama, thriller, societal think piece, and musical into a very avant-garde blend that has proved to be quite divisive in cinema discourse since its release at the Cannes Film Festival last year led to a rather tepid theatrical debut and middling release onto Netflix's streaming service.
At first glance, this might make “Emilia Pérez” seem to be the kind of forgettable one or two nom movie that doesn't make waves come awards night. However, the strength of its nominations along with a surprise best picture selection for Brazilian film “I'm Still Here” has garnered “Emilia Pérez” wider attention and will likely vault it to the top of Netflix's most seen films up until the Oscars on March 2.
The film follows a mid-tier Mexican attorney played by Zoe Saldana, who is pressed into the service of a cartel leader only to discover that she is covertly aiding in gender affirmation surgery so the drug lord can lead the remainder of their life as a woman.
On its face, this may cause pause among more conservative cinephiles, and yet Audiard doubles down on the divisive nature of his film, opting to make the entire film operatic with musical numbers interrupting the flow of the film.
Already a Golden Globe winner in the role, Saldana is likely to win a best supporting actress Oscar as well for her turn as Rita, the attorney who aides Emilia’s transition in secret.
Her strongest work happens within the film's first act before Emilia is even introduced and there is a staccato vibrancy to Saldana’s musical theatricality that evokes a sharp “Hamilton”-like rap dialogue which works in certain segments of the film especially for her character, though the often rapid changes in tone even within the musical segments make it quite difficult for some audiences to truly engage with the material in a responsible manner.
Once the titular Emilia takes over as the main character, Saldana’s performance slightly weakens, and any character development becomes short-shifted to an almost one note devotion to a reformed character who may not necessarily have earned it.
Transgender actress Karla Sofia Gascón portrays the title character both pre and post transition as cartel leader Manitas and Emilia and though Audiard originally sought to have a separate male performer play Manitas, the film works better with one person portraying both parts.
The overall concept of the film becomes the duality that Manitas and Emilia share with Manitas unable to hide the softer life they wish to lead as a woman and Emilia not entirely able to control the more unforgiving ruthless side of a cartel boss.
Gascón portrays this dichotomy admirably and beautifully, though her vocal work is much more self-assured and confident outside the musical moments. And while the depths of this complete transformation are brought out over the course of two hours, there's still a disconnect audience members may feel to Emilia's journey as some of the more introspective signs of regret are not well-developed and shuffled into song form that kind of lessens the overall impact of the narrative.
Musician and “Only Murders in the Building” stars Selena Gomez cranks the melodrama up to 11 as Manitas’ wife, Jessi, who believes her husband to have been murdered and forms a somewhat stilted friendship with Emilia.
Though it's clear that Gomez is giving her all in the role, her Jessi sticks out like a sore thumb in the larger context of the world Audiard creates and is unquestionably the most dislikable character in the entire film. Whether this is intentional on the part of Audiard and Gomez to portray Jessi in this way is unclear, however, much of her time on screen is marred by this disconnect, setting the course for an awkwardly staged third act that will be among the film's most controversial moments.
At its core, “Emilia Pérez” likens itself to be both a vibrant musical and an intimate drama about transitioning though a somewhat forced need to make Manitas a drug kingpin causes issues in the film's second half when it feels as if Manitas’ dirty deeds and connections to the Mexican underworld are relatively washed away upon her return to Mexico City. And there's an incompleteness to that story element that will linger in audience's minds.
As an Oscar front runner, “Emilia Pérez” has strong technical elements that make it among the year's best from a production design and costuming perspective especially though certain elements like screenplay and editing really limit the ease and suspension of disbelief that audiences need to lock in with a film of this kind.
With the likelihood that it’s in a two-way race opposite “The Brutalist” for best picture, cinephiles wanting to have a fuller picture of the Oscar race before this Academy Awards ceremony March 2 should definitely check out “Emilia Pérez” on Netflix though moviegoers skeptical of the film's plot or avantgarde tone might be better served skipping the film altogether.
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