“Half kingpin, half queen / Half here, half there / Half dead, half alive / Half inside, half out,” sings Emilia Pérez. Played with magnetic screen presence in a true star-is-born performance by Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez is a tragic heroine for the ages. She straddles two worlds in an electrifying narco musical from French master Jacques Audiard (Paris, 13th District) as she kidnaps ambitious defense attorney Rita (Zoe Saldaña) and makes her a proposal: to facilitate her transition.
It’s not the offer that Rita expects in a shady legal system in which lawyers usually let druglords grease their palms to flub a case or compromise a witness. But the gamble puts many lives into a globe-trotting odyssey of operatic violence as a secret intimately connects the two women for life. It’s a nerve-wracking, yet euphorically great thrill ride as these two women discover themselves anew. You’ve never seen anything like Emilia Pérez.
The proposal that Rita accepts, moreover, is an offer she simply can’t refuse. It comes as she finds herself face to face with one of Mexico’s most notorious drug kingpins, Manitas. The burly man with rippling muscles, a robust physique, and a body wall-papered in prison tattoos, Manitas might be the most intimidating man she’s encountered on the job. But as Manitas confides in Rita that he is secretly transitioning, Rita herself makes a choice to change her life to escape a job with long hours and little pay. She travels the world to fulfill Manitas’ desire and ultimately makes a deal with the devil. Nobody can escape such a violent past.
Emilia Pérez is born when Rita completes her assignment and Manitas’ death is staged in a grisly end. She tries to atone for her violent past by establishing a charity to help families of victims of violence and identify bodies. Each encounter haunts her though—was this the wife of the man who died in Manitas’ stead?—especially the appearance of the aptly named Epifanía (Adriana Paz). The two women find solace in one another as they escape violent men. At the same time, Emilia tries to reconnect with Manitas’ widow (Selena Gomez) so that her children can be part of her life. As Emilia gazes longingly at her family, Jessi fails to recognize her and scorns her unknowingly by resuming an affair with a pimp (Édgar Ramírez). But bubbles of jealously and the threat of losing her children force Emilia’s old self to bubble to the surface. She learns that truly becoming someone else requires a transformation of the not just the body, but the soul as well.
Gascón offers the notable feat of playing Manitas and Emilia on both sides of the transition. It’s perhaps the boldest casting choice yet for a trans actor. This incredibly brave performance explores her character’s duality as well as her own. Her take on Manitas is larger than life as he growls at Rita in a husky voice (which Gascón modelled on Sylvester Stallone) and serves a stare that pierces the eyes with wolf-like fury. As Emilia, though, Gascón carries herself with similar authority as the former kingpin draws upon her past life to inform her present one. This performance is groundbreaking and you can feel it.
It’s also simply a lively, vivacious, and fully lived-in performance that ranks atop the best turns by any actor this year. Emilia Pérez demands its actors to go all in and they deliver. The songs of Emilia Pérez, much like the tunes of fellow TIFF operetta The End, might not be showtunes that audiences can carry on the way home. But in fusing dazzling elements of camp with poetic tragedy, Audiard stages some truly thrilling sequences as characters enact and explore their inner desires through song.
The film mixes some showstopping set-pieces with heartfelt ballads. The music by Camille and Clément Ducol are imaginative feats that perhaps may test the boundaries of political correctness for western audiences, including a gender affirmation surgery with a refrain of “Man to woman, woman to man. But there’s a laissez-faire sense of play that only the French could deliver here and the film magically navigates the interplay between escapism and reality with theatrical lighting and vibrant colours as characters shift in and out of song. Audiard’s go-for-broke direction straddles genres and styles, giddily commanding the suspension of belief one requires for the musical numbers. But the maestro also grounds the narco narrative in authenticity, rejecting stereotypes in favour of fleshed out characters and poetic tragedy.
In one number, Saldaña razzle dazzles with doctors and patients in a Thai hospital while researching gender affirmation surgery. A Julie Taymor-esque carnival of lights, whirling hospital beds, and an ensemble of doctors and patients pirouetting in ecstasy. In another number, say, Gascón sings her heart out as Emilia explores the duality of her character and reckons with what it means to be herself in a world where nobody recognizes her. The beautiful frailty of Gascón’s voice accentuates the bravery of this performance. There’s cautious restraint to her singing as Emilia negotiates her new voice and explores its range, which risks cracking as it strives for higher notes. But the songs inject the film with soulful vulnerability that Emilia hides behind her tough exterior.
Rita, too, undergoes a metamorphosis as she cashes in on the other side of the Mexican underworld. As she thrives through the life of luxury that Emilia enjoys, she also leans that this is a job she can never escape. Saldaña exudes confidence and charisma as Rita absorbs Emilia’s infectious mojo. As a singer and performer, she nimbly excels in a wide range of song and dance numbers, including a jazzy showstopper at Emilia’s benefit ball.
Gomez and Paz, meanwhile, offer memorable supporting turns with the forming proving a firecracker in both dramatic and musical moments, while the latter lends subtle power to moments that let Emilia and Epifanía explore their love. The quartet of actors rightly shared the Best Actress prize at Cannes. Saldaña has never been better as she sings some lively numbers that fuel the adventure. It’s a compelling lead turn even if Gascón ultimately steals the film in its melodramatic beats. This film is Gascón’s moment, and she makes use of every second of it to ensure that Emilia Pérez is one of the best films of 2024.
