On Nov. 13, the new film “Emilia Pérez” debuted on Netflix.
A genre-defying epic, the film is a crime/comedy/romance/musical that tells the story of a Mexican defense attorney named Rita — played by Zoe Saldaña — who is contacted by Juan Del Monte, a drug lord — played by Karla Sofía Gascón — who needs help covertly obtaining gender-affirming surgery.
The latest from renowned French director Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez” made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where the film took home the Jury Prize, which is essentially the festival’s third-place award. Its four leading actresses — Saldaña, Gascón, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz — collectively received the Best Actress award.
The latter award is particularly well deserved, as the increasingly bizarre antics of “Emilia Pérez” would fall apart under less talented actresses.
Saldaña is brilliant and easily the best of the film’s ensemble cast. It’s quite refreshing to see her in a non-blockbuster role, where her talents as a dramatic actress are on full display. Her forceful performance brings a necessary sense of resolution to Rita’s character. She acts as the film’s metaphorical anchor, holding it relatively steady against the tumultuous nature of the plot.
Gascón, who primarily acted in telenovelas prior to “Emilia Pérez,” is terrific in the titular role. While many filmmakers would cast a cisgender man to play the character of Emilia, Audiard wisely cast Gascón — who is a transgender woman — to play Emilia in all of her facets, both before and after her transition. She does not have to play Emilia’s closeted self for very long, but when she does, she dons grills, face tattoos and a fake beard to complete the look.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gascón revealed that it was her idea to play Emilia pre-transition.
“So many people have asked me, and it bothers me, how it felt to ‘regress to being a man.’ I never regressed to anything,” Gascón said in the interview. “I play a character that isn’t me. If someone asks me to play a murderer who wants to end the world, and I end up saying, ‘Oh my god, how am I going to do that?’ Then who would play that role? What kind of an actress would I be?”
While Gascón’s passionate, emotive performance is worthy of praise, it’s debatable how good Audiard is at telling a trans and Hispanic story.
The script of “Emilia Pérez” is certainly messy, and in many ways, that messiness works to the film’s advantage. However, its commendable message is muddied by the chaos surrounding it.
Emilia attempts to atone for her sins as a drug lord by founding an organization to help find and identify the remains of people who have been victims of cartel-related homicides.
At a benefit gala, she reveals to Rita that she invited a bunch of “drug kingpins, corrupt officials (and) crooks” to the fundraiser.
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Rita says that she doesn’t want their organization to be funded by dirty money, and she proceeds to break out into a spirited musical number about the greed and hypocrisy of those in power in Mexico.
It seems as if the differing values of the two women are going to drive a wedge in their friendship, but Audiard promptly forgets the conversation.
The film sets Emilia on this path toward redemption, seemingly to ward off accusations of reinforcing stereotypes by villainizing a trans character, but it doesn’t allow her to truly redeem herself.
She reengages in criminal activity — albeit at a less severe degree — without facing repercussions or even pushback, besides the one disagreement with Rita. Audiard is trying incredibly hard to make a “positive” trans story — an attribute that can ultimately only be assigned by the viewer. This causes the end product to feel like an incomplete trans story.
Emilia is not given the agency to be a whole person; instead, she’s simply a prop for communicating Audiard’s message.
One could argue that a cisgender French man should not be the one telling this story, and while that may be correct, it’s an argument that doesn’t serve much of a purpose in terms of truly dissecting “Emilia Pérez.”
Audiard has made the film, Netflix has released it, and now it’s up to the audience — particularly trans and Hispanic viewers — to decide if it has merit regardless of its authorship.
Elijah Ritch is a freelance reporter for the Daily Lobo. They can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
