‘Emilia Pérez’ movie review: a modern musical that bites off more than it can chew

Posted On October 24, 2024October 24, 2024

I watched Emilia Pérez during my first day of the London Film Festival, and after seeing a gushing post about it from MUBI, the infamous indie lover and protector, I braced myself for the genius of a film that was described as a “uniquely daring fever dream that defies all expectations”. The director Jacques Audiard, known for A Prophet and Paris, 13th District, appeared on stage before the screening, along with the cast, with Karla Sofía Gascón describing it as the best movie ever made. It’s safe to say I was intrigued! Completely arrested! But alas, people said similar things before the release of Annette, and we all know how that went…

Emilia Pérez follows an under-appreciated and talented lawyer called Rita, who finds herself being slightly kidnapped and whisked away by one of Mexico City’s notorious drug lords, Manitas, who asks for help in organising their sex change. Rita agrees, and soon after, Manitas becomes Emilia Pérez, faking her own death to avoid the clutches of dangerous gangs and criminals who may hurt her family.

From this point, the film bounces between multiple locations and countries, with Emilia Pérez moving abroad to start a new life and Rita leading a life of luxury in London after being paid a handsome fee for her help with the legalities of the procedure. But then, in a totally un-shocking turn of events, the pair cross paths again, and Emilia Pérez reveals that she needs her help for one final mission – reunite her with her children and former wife, played by Selena Gomez.

The film then aimlessly flits between all three women, attempting to create a sprawling ‘oh look, they’re all connected’ type of storyline but failing to create any cohesive narrative, with each character and plot line feeling as fleshed out as the women in a Michael Bay movie. If the film intended to be a campy soap opera that is deliberately bad in order to be entertaining, then it succeeded, but to me, it lacked the self-awareness to achieve this, thinking itself to be deeply serious and dramatic.

It ungraciously screeches into a number of truly bizarre musical numbers, with a scene that shows a group of plastic surgeons spinning their patients around on hospital beds, chanting, “penis to vagina or vagina to penis, what will it be?” Upon hearing this, the person sitting next to me quite literally choked.

The musical numbers felt completely jarring and uninspired, with the characters singing about pointless things that didn’t add anything to the stakes or emotional landscape of the film, only existing as a way of emphasising that it is, in fact, a musical. In other musicals, singing is a way of expressing the inexpressible, with people bursting into song to share unbridled love and passion, a secret language that articulates private thoughts and desires. But in Emilia Pérez, the music felt like an afterthought, with Audiard forgetting that to make a good musical, you actually need good songs with a bland visual style and choreography that didn’t communicate anything as vibrant or groundbreaking as it thought.

Emilia Pérez is a film so eager to be a million things that it cannot commit to one thing, leaving you unsure whether you should be laughing with it or at it, swinging so far that the hits and misses feel even more disappointing, ultimately feeling confused and over-saturated. It presents itself as a story that explores queer identity and female empowerment but ultimately feels hollow and flat, creating a tonal disconnect in its imitation of a melodrama, but without any substance to pack any punch.

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