“Emilia Pérez” leads the nominations ahead of the 2025 Oscars with 13 nominations, the most Academy Awards ever for a non-English film, although the controversial film left audiences baffled.
The film already received three awards at the Cannes Film Festival and four Golden Globes.
The latest from French director Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez” is a musical that follows lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña), as she is called to coordinate the gender transition of a fictional Mexican cartel boss (Karla Sofía Gascón), who becomes Emilia Pérez.
The movie explores themes of gender expression, the role of women in society and violent crimes committed by cartel syndicates in Mexico. It fails to capitalize on any one of them.
The film starts out as a gender dysphoria narrative that is quickly resolved after a stilted song between Rita and a prospective surgeon. A plotline about Emilia’s attempt to right the wrongs of her past as a criminal begins, ended by a small romantic subplot. The climax lacks any earned catharsis for the viewer.
In an attempt to underscore these themes, the film has 43 original musical songs. Every time a conversation between characters became interesting, “talk-singing” would start to abruptly transition from dialogue to song. The only indication of a song beginning comes from the closed captioning, which halted the pacing of scenes.
For the majority of the musical numbers, the choreography amounts to characters sitting across from each other at a table, which begs the question of why a song was added in those moments at all.
Apart from narrative blemishes and appalling music, other elements of the film are sound. The actors deliver even with little substance they are given. The cinematography and lighting is interesting, barring the lack of movement during certain songs.
It is hard to go into “Emilia Pérez” blind. Not only do audience reviews pan the movie online, but so do controversies surrounding the production and lead actress.
“Emilia Pérez” currently has a 73% critics score and 18% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. On Letterboxd, an average of two-and-a-half out of five starts with over 350,000 ratings. Finally, on IMDb, it sits at 7.5/10. There is a major gap between the opinion of critics and general audiences.
Among being criticized for being a “step backward for trans representation,” the movie has also been mocked for its Mexican representation. The cast consists of only one Mexican actor in a supporting role. What's more is the movie was filmed and submitted under France for the 97th Academy Awards.
The movie includes elements of Mexico’s drug war and the hundreds of thousands of people who have gone missing. A mother of one of those victims, Artemisa Belmonte, told the Associated Press the movie felt insensitive. “
You can’t talk about the subject as if it were something to make a musical about,” Belmonte said.
Karla Sofía Gascón plays the titular supporting role. She came under fire for an interview where she suggested that people associated with fellow best actress nominee Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”) were behind attacks on Gascón. Past Tweets by Gascón also have been scrutinized for how she speaks of Black Americans and Muslims. Some online have called for her disqualification at the Oscars and has recently been removed from the film’s press tour.
It is hard to ignore the discourse around “Emilia Pérez,” but the movie has difficulty standing on its own when it’s separated from behind-the-scenes drama .
The film is a patchwork of famous storytelling mediums and narratives. While influential figures have praised “Emilia Pérez,” it misses the mark on providing a compelling narrative as well as representing Mexican and transgender voices.
