Emilia Pérez

Grade: B

Emilia Pérez opens with Rita (Zoe Saldaña). She is a lawyer, doing lawyery things. She prepares her opening statement, feeds lines to her co-pilot in the courtroom when he falters, and breaks into a song and dance number, with the townspeople providing backup work. This is a musical. It’s not that loudly touted as one, but treated as secondary. You could have the most beautiful singer in the world present a technically perfect performance, but there might be no feeling, emotion, or regard for what they’re singing about. The voices here aren’t always the best, but they suit the action to the word and sell their song every time. I call it act-singing. The songs ebb and flow, without necessarily a definitive button at the end. I’d compare it to the music in Annette and Cyrano, but on that level, Emilia Pérez is the best of the three.

When I was in a production of Romeo and Juliet, our director enjoyed pointing out that one little thumb biting on the street sets into motion the entire play. Nothing that transpires would have happened otherwise. I brought this up earlier this year, when I observed that everything that takes place in The Substance was just because Demi Moore overheard a phone conversation in the restroom. The first domino in Emilia Pérez is when Rita gets a phone call from a number she doesn’t recognize. A man’s voice tells her that if she wants to be rich, “be at the newsstand in 10 minutes.”

She goes, and is hooded and carted off in a van, but it’s not a traditional kidnapping. She has been summoned by Manitas Del Monte, a notorious drug lord. This person has gender dysphoria, and wants to become a woman, so Rita is hired to help with the logistics (finding a good surgeon, making “Manitas” disappear, etc). As far as everyone in their life knows, Manitas is dead. Post-transition, she emerges as Emilia Pérez. She enters Manitas’s immediate family’s lives, presenting as a long lost cousin. They all live together. The kids call her “aunt.”

Jessi (Selena Gomez) doesn’t know that Emilia was once Manitas, her husband. They have deep conversations about Manitas, over coffee or something stronger. “What was he like?” “Did you ever cheat on him?” Questions of that nature. I thought of Mrs. Doubtfire, with the talks in the kitchen between a disguised Robin Williams and an unsuspecting Sally Field.

Rita is in the picture more than I am making it sound. The movie’s middle section was a lull for me, with emphasis on a subplot that I didn’t care for as much. What is always interesting, though, is the magnitude of the three (really four) lead performances – among the best of the year. Saldaña is a highlight in her song and dance numbers, spitting out those consonants. Gomez is a fierce force of nature. And as both the title character and the man we meet at the beginning, trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón is amazing. However she pulled off the bearded, bass-voiced Manitas at the beginning is an impressive feat.

The film pulls itself together to deliver a third act that is on the level of its first. There’s a certain bittersweetness – leaning towards happy – in the way everything turns out. To go back to R&J, you could say “a glooming peace this morning with it brings.” This movie will resonate with many, and I’m looking forward to the discussion it generates. By the end, Emilia is living as true as she’s ever been.

Grade: B