The nature of the film festival circuit is a blessing and a curse for projects like Emilia Pérez. Since premiering to acclaim from a select few critics and industry professionals at Cannes back in May, the film has gradually widened its audience to more diverse demographics at the likes of Telluride and Toronto, where it has been met with a noticeably more lukewarm reception.
To be fair, one can appreciate why Jacques Audiard’s schlocky, gun-toting musical would make such a splash at Cannes; the festivals can be marathons, as journalists watch as many as four films a day, racing at all times against embargoes and deadlines. If nothing else, Emilia Pérez breaks up the morning with three flashy, movie star performances and some generally inoffensive nods towards worthy themes.
Beyond the community theatre razzle-dazzle however, the film is as hollow as one of its many overcompensating drums. Although ostensibly the story of its titular cartel kingpin’s transition into womanhood, Audiard’s plot is instead a plodding montage without conflict nor a tangible point-of-view. The first act is interested only in the admin of Emilia’s journey, a medley of surgery listings, fund allocations and the relocating of Emilia’s loved ones. Lost in the mix is a palpable motivation for Emilia’s change, which is addressed only in a fleeting cutaway to a doctor’s appointment behind closed doors, about ten seconds in all.
The remainder of the film is essentially without shape. After four years of rebuilding her life, Emilia decides to reunite with estranged wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and her children, who had years ago been led to believe she died, and employs her past lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldana) to make it happen. With Emilia’s arc being such a rote slog (the hundreds of millions she has stashed away ensure she never has to deal with any real trans issues), Rita is the closest the film has to an active protagonist. Audiard regularly alludes to Rita’s guilt over selling her soul to serve a gangster like Emilia, but even she starts to disappear for up to twenty minutes at a time without rhyme nor reason, as the film bounces across a dozen half-baked threads, flailing in search of any raison d’etre.
Emilia Pérez has been sold on its musical numbers, but even these intended show-stoppers fall oddly flat, with cheap staging and some miserably dense lyrics. The function of a good musical is to empower characters to express their innermost feelings in ways they can’t otherwise articulate, but the characters here are so paper-thin that they never get more to do than perform standard dialogue. One early sequence wherein Rita sing-speaks with one of Emilia’s doctors is particularly awkward, becoming unintentionally hilarious as Saldana pours her heart into paragraphs of perfunctory exposition.
The choreography isn’t much better, as Audiard tends towards close-ups and quick cuts, never giving his dancers the space nor time to make any sort of impression. Occasional gimmicks are employed to break up the formula, such as a number sung by Gomez directly into her iPhone camera, which is neither live-streaming nor in record.
This particular number is emblematic of a wider issue across the film; the mistaking of buzzwords for real ideas. Emilia Pérez isn’t a film about the trans experience, nor is it about the Mexican cartel complex, nor any the other hot topics it continuously belts in your general direction. It is a fireworks display with delusions of grandeur, which might be forgivable if it wasn’t then so terribly dull.
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