It’s surprising that Jacques Audiard has never worked in Hollywood. The Frenchman’s films are cineastic spectacles: visually impressive, emotion and action-packed melodramas or thrillers with larger than life protagonists. However, Audiard has a soft spot for people in the margins of society, whether it’s young prisoners with Maghrebian roots (A PROPHET), a killer whale trainer (RUST AND BONE) or a Sri Lankan refugee (DHEEPAN). EMILIA PÉREZ, set in Mexico, also moves outside of bourgeois etiquette: lawyer Rita is frustrated. There’s corruption everywhere and her talent isn’t rewarded. Then, one day, she gets kidnapped and finds herself sitting across notorious cartel boss Juan “Manitas“ Del Monte, who gives her a lucrative offer. He wants to go into hiding and become a women and she is meant to organize the gender-affirming surgery. Ria agrees, Manitas becomes Emilia Pérez, and Ria is catapulted into a life among the international elite. She meets Emilia again at dinner who has a new mission for her – she wants to go back to Mexico, to her ex-wife Jessi and the kids who know nothing about this. However, the crimes that Emilia committed as Manitas are also waiting there.
Audiard stages this wild story in an extremely entertaining mixture of musical, thriller, and melodrama. Whenever things get emotional, music breaks out, and in between, everyone involved maneuvers through a minefield of desire and morality. No one is completely clean. Zoe Saldaña (Ria), Karla Sofía Gascón (Manitas/Emilia), Selena Gomez (Jessi) and Adriana Paz, who plays Emilia's friend Epifanía, jointly received the Actress Award at Cannes 2024 for their performances.

Hendrike Bake (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy