Sing Your Criminal Mischief
Since I’ve been told in the last six weeks that the question of transgender criminals having surgery is the gravest issue facing the nation, it’s apropos for an awards-seeking prestige movie to deal with that exact subject. There’s no question of taxpayer funding, since this is one of those movies in which every character has access to unlimited money. When I first heard the premise of Emilia Perez—a feared Mexican drug lord secretly transitions to female, to both live her authentic life and to escape the dangers of the cartel, and also, it’s a musical—my reaction was that it sounds intriguing, but difficult to pull off.
The filmmakers didn’t pull it off.
Emilia Perez is a failure, but a fascinating one. While the performances are mostly outstanding, the film is visually ugly, the musical numbers are unimaginative and poorly-staged, and the ending is unsatisfying. Directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, this is a very different movie from the recent flop Joker: Folie a Deux, but the films have a few of the same weaknesses; both would’ve been better off excising the musical numbers altogether. And I love movie musicals.
Zoe Saldana stars as Rita, a struggling lawyer in Mexico City, who gets the proposition of a lifetime. Feared drug cartel boss Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón) needs her assistance to facilitate her gender transition, while also spiriting Manitas’ American wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and their two children out of the country. It’s a combination of sincere gender self-actualization and the Mexican equivalent of the witness protection program.
The plot picks up four years later, with Manitas’ transition to Emilia Perez complete. But then she decides she wants to see her kids, who believe she’s a “distant cousin” and don’t know she’s their father. The film recycles the plot of Mrs. Doubtfire for its entire second act while getting into some melodrama involving Jessi’s past and current affairs.
Selena Gomez is wonderful as Jessi. I’m used to seeing her in that Steve Martin/Martin Short show, which just gets stupider the longer it goes on, but Gomez is a perfect performer for over-the-top melodrama. I wish Pedro Almodovar would make her his new muse.
Karla Sofía Gascón is also impressive, portraying Manitas/Emilia both pre-and-post transition. How movies and shows should handle such performances has been a thorny issue in the past, but Gascon is believable as both versions of the character, although whether this movie goes down as a win for transgender representation is another question.
But the film juggles many different tones, and can’t handle it, even beyond the question of whether the redemption arc of Emilia—who, it’s implied, has brutally murdered a significant number of people—is earned. It’s an ugly film, devoid of any visual flair, and the musical numbers have subpar melodies and dumb lyrics.
Emilia Perez also asks us to believe that Rita can recognize that Emilia is Manitas within about two minutes, but that the resemblance is completely lost on everybody else in the world, including her own wife and children, when even one of those people making the connection would likely lead to instant death.
When Emilia starts an NGO to aid the victims of cartel violence, this entails going before TV cameras and becoming a public figure, you’d think someone, whether a journalist or someone from the cartel world, would put two and two together. If a movie about being trans deserves celebration in 2024, it’s I Saw the TV Glow, not Emilia Perez.