“Emilia Pérez” in the cinema – “Emilia Pérez”: Like a line of coke

“Emilia Pérez” is a musical about a brutal cartel boss who has his gender reassigned. Wait a minute. A musical? This can’t work, it will definitely end in an involuntary parody! To anticipate this much: Yes, it works. And how – when the director is called Jacques Audiard, who masterfully knows how to play with different film genres and also has a special talent for drawing the audience into the inner lives of his unusual characters.

In 2009, for example, people suffered in his film “A Prophet” with 19-year-old Malik, who is arrested for the first time and mentally brutalized in prison; In 2012, in “The Taste of Rust and Bone,” he moved beyond all clichés with a pair of lovers; In 2015 he won the Palme d’Or for his haunting thriller drama “Demons and Miracles” about Tamil refugees confronted with violence in the Parisian banlieues; In 2018, Audiard impressed again with the great neo-Western “The Sisters Brothers,” about two trigger-happy outlaws who suffered from a violent father. How one can escape the legacy of male violence and what traumas and vulnerabilities are hidden behind raw facades is a common thread running through his films.

This is also the case in his new work “Emilia Pérez”, which won the jury prize and a joint actress award in Cannes this year – among others, “Guardians of the Galaxy” star Zoe Saldaña was honored for her role as ambitious Lawyer Rita, the Spanish trans woman Karla Sofía Gascón in her Oscar-worthy double role as gang boss Manitas and as the eponymous Emilia Pérez and the Pop singer Selena Gomez honored for her role as Manitas’ wife Jessi.

The action-packed musical, alongside which the Netflix series “Narcos” acts like a documentary, begins with the appearance of the black lawyer Rita Moro Castro. The story, shot primarily in Spanish, is told from their perspective. Rita works tirelessly to free bad fellows. But others take the credit for her work and she is also underpaid. “Cuánto, cuánto tiempo más chambearé para nada?” – “How long, how long do I want to work for free?” she sings, shortly before the Mexican cartel boss Manitas del Monte meets her to make her an extremely lucrative offer, which she can hardly refuse.

The sung soliloquies and dialogues – which were filmed on a sound stage near Paris – come from the French singer Camille and her partner Clément Ducol. The songs that received the Cannes Soundtrack Award fit surprisingly organically into the profound story – also thanks to the great cast – and push like a line of coke. This is strongly reminiscent of the intense films of Xavier Dolan, especially his masterpiece »Laurence Anyways«. Here, too, you slip into the skin of a man who decides to live as a woman in order to finally be herself. You have to see how effortlessly Audiard and his cameraman Paul Guilhaume switch between musical numbers and drama.

Anyone who is prepared to embark on a rollercoaster of emotions should warmly recommend this bold film spectacle about the devil’s identity.

Manitas has always felt like a woman in a hypermasculine world and has decided to finally retire from his cruel business – and undergo a transition. Rita is supposed to arrange everything, including his fake death. Even his wife Jessi and his beloved children are not allowed to be informed of his plans. Finally, Rita finds a doctor who agrees to do this, but sings to her: “You know, I only repair the body, skin and bones, but I will never repair the soul.” This is how Manitas del Monte becomes Emilia Pérez .

When Rita is visited by Emilia again years later, she is still faced with a strong character, but also with a person who has changed a lot, and not just on the outside: Emilia misses her children so much that she asks Rita to bring them back together with her. She also decides to found an NGO together with Rita that investigates missing person cases for relatives of cartel victims. Emilia longs with every fiber of her new body to make amends for the suffering she helped to cause. But can one pay off an old, terrible debt and simply shed one’s old self with a new gender? This exciting question is raised by this unique mixture of melodrama, high-energy musical, arthouse drama, telenovela and mafia film.

Rita and Emilia throw an NGO gala together, at which Zoe Saldaña sings and dances her way into the Olympus of unforgettable film scenes with an energetic performance. Pure cinema magic.

Whether Emilia falls into old patterns or is ultimately redeemed and can break the vicious circle of violence is, like herself, unpredictable. Control freaks are advised not to watch »Emilia Pérez«, but anyone who is prepared to embark on a rollercoaster of emotions should warmly recommend this bold film spectacle about the devil’s identity.

»Emilia Pérez«, France 2024. Director and script: Jacques Audiard. Starring: Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz. Release date: November 28th.