Emilia Pérez (2024) - Jacques Audiard’s hot mess takes the music out of the musical

Credit: allocine.fr

Though comparing a film to others is not necessarily the best way to go about reviewing it, it is perhaps of particular use to Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, a tale that has garnered over the last couple of months its fair share of controversy, implicating both its story and its actors offscreen. Take some of the most renowned musicals in the world – West Side Story, Les Misérables, Chicago, for instance. In each of these, songs are sung as a direct response to inner turmoil, to an opportunity that has presented itself, to declare one’s love. ‘One Hand, One Heart’ is an assertion of devotion, a binding contract that Maria and Tony are one, and will be forever. ‘Look Down’ is a commentary on the destitute and poor, and later, a verbal wrestle between Valjean and Javert. ‘Roxie’ is, quite simply, Roxie’s bid to become famous once she is out of prison, told as though she were already in the limelight, accompanied by her own backup dancers. Here lies the first, and central issue with this said genre-bending Oscar nominee, a mashup between a drug cartel drama and opera libretto: its songs add strictly no value, be it information or emotion, to its storyline. Shortly after a character states someone is corrupt, a song is sung about their corruption. Minutes after receiving a strange phone call, it is sung about with no allusion to the character’s inner dialogue. And this is before we even get to ‘La vaginoplastia’, which has been slapped across social media as a testament to the bewildering fact the film is even in the running for an Academy Award. Does Emilia Pérez try to do too much at once, then? Not necessarily. Chicago, for instance, does an excellent job of mixing musical and court case drama, as does Hamilton with the political history of the early United States. So what, exactly went wrong?

Zoë Saldaña plays Rita Mora Castro, a struggling attorney based in Mexico City who in the opening scene finds herself writing a defence statement for a man who has clearly murdered his wife. Dissatisfied by this way of life, an anonymous call later that evening leads her to cartel kingpin Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascón), who enlists her to help him become a woman and live his authentic life, a job she accepts for a handsome sum. Rita arranges all aspects of Manitas’ new life as Emilia Pérez, including relocating his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and two children to Switzerland, but despite completing her mission successfully, it is not long before she is dragged back into Emilia’s web of corruption.

A lot could have been done in theory with this storyline, but any attempt to go further than a mere idea is quashed almost immediately, starting with the very character at the heart of the film, who transitions (literally) from criminal drug lord to tender, kind-hearted woman (prone to an outburst or two). No effort is made to reconcile the two, so much so that not only is Emilia’s experience living as a woman swept under the rug, but the film actively promotes the concept that man equals aggressive and woman equals soft. In other words, Emilia has nothing to do with Manitas – they are two different personalities entirely, which displaces the drug cartel drama in the second half of the film and undermines Emilia’s new identity. Inconsistencies ripen throughout – I, for one, struggled to understand why Rita of all people was even hired in the first place, while Emilia’s brief affair with a woman she helps through her missing person charity felt out of place and underdeveloped. A strange mix of mediums accompanies its musical numbers – after dancing with an imaginary dance troupe in her bedroom, Jessi continues the song on the screen of her phone, or sings karaoke with her new love Gustavo (Édgar Ramirez), in which the lyrics appear onscreen. It's bizarre, but more importantly meaningless, an attempt perhaps to be both trashy and classy at the same time. Yet somehow, Emilia Pérez captivates, no doubt down to the fact that it is so utterly wacky you can’t help but keep watching. Its trio of actresses are bedazzling however, despite what they were given to work with, especially Gascón, who does a good amount of the heavy lifting. The problem with Emilia Pérez, then, may begin with its storyline, its many issues with character development and utter disregard for the trans experience. But it ends with the fact that the very point of the musical has been missed – the songs are not about stating in tuneful form what has just been said, but about embodying the feeling in a melody, pushing it further through the means of music. Certainly, you either love it, or hate it – but even for a musical fan like myself, Emilia Pérez leaves you wishing the song would just, please, stop.