Audacity and ambition define Jacques Audiard. The veteran filmmaker’s latest creation, Emilia Perez, might not count as one of his best but is quite a trailblazer in more ways than one. It resists categorization; the traditional straitjacketing of genres entirely eludes it. It is an edge-of-the-seat crime thriller, a riveting courtroom drama, an affecting family melodrama, a sentimental Latin American telenovela and most so a rambunctious Broadway musical, all rolled into one. Not to forget the gender and sexuality politics, however unformed, that Audiard throws in the mix. The versatile French maestro’s tenth film speaks in Spanish, is set in Mexico City, and takes him out of France to explore the Latin American culture on screen with a virtuoso cast of Spanish and Latin American actors and a trans actor playing the titular character.
Audiard tells it straight but with loads of style, colour and chutzpah and mounts it on a sweeping scale making Emilia Perez constantly entertaining and great fun even though flimsy and far-fetched. A case of Audiard letting himself loose in the Pedro Almodovar territory but not quite approximating his level of complexity in characterization and representation behind the veneer of style. It is all about a violent world inhabited by drug cartels and the mafia. The film focuses on the drug lord Juan Manitas del Monte, married happily to Annie (Selena Gomez) with two young kids that he dotes on. In a seemingly bizarre turn of events for the macho man that he is, Manitas does something extraordinary. He decides to get away from his deadly business and sets out to chart a new course in life by embracing his secret inner self. He undergoes sex reassignment surgery to become a woman, Senora Emilia Perez (Karla Sofia Gascon).
To help him hatch his transition plan, Manitas kidnaps and enlists defence lawyer Rita Castro (Zoe Saldana), who is feeling stuck, suffocated and frustrated in a law firm that has little to do with justice, instead specialising in setting criminals scot-free. As offenders buy lawyers, killings are passed off for suicides, she wonders how long she will have to waste her talent and when will she get her deserved applause and monetary rewards. On the other hand, there are some more consequential questions. Will she help Manitas change his destiny, or will the karma catch up with him eventually?
As Rita goes about the task—from staging the fake death of Manitas to organising a surgeon, from getting her new identity documents to setting up a fresh home for Annie and her kids—the film moves geographies, from Mexico City to Tel Aviv to Switzerland and then back to Mexico City, in the blink of the eye. The outer change of appearance also harbours an inner change of heart. With the guilt of young deaths due to Cartel crimes overwhelming a repentant Emilia, she goes about seeking atonement by setting up a charity to find their graves and bring relief and closure to their bereaved families. But will it absolve her of her past? A similar sense of overt virtue and morality imbues the film as well, especially in the extended yet facile take on transphobia and the sorority of women that it consciously subverts the typically male gangster narrative with. But without quite plumbing the depths, especially when it comes to the issue of transition. The “half-man, half-woman, half-papa, half-aunt” thing is nothing more than half-baked.
Audiard’s sixth film in the Cannes competition (which is now set to travel to the Toronto International Film Festival in September) did something unprecedented in Cannes, winning the best actress award for the entire cast of fabulous women, including Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldana, Adriana Paz and Karla Sofia Gascon, the first trans actor to mark a Cannes win. The award was not just to celebrate the ensemble acting but to also acknowledge their musical talent that helps bring the catchy score of singer Camille and composer Clement Ducol and the energetic choreography of Damien Jalet to life. It’s the musical spectacle that truly makes this movie a roller coaster ride.
