With 13 Oscar nominations and four Golden Globe wins, Emilia Pérez has been racking up a series of appraisals and controversies. The bottom line: Emilia Pérez is bizarre at best and tone deaf at worst. It’s certainly creative… and disjointed in a way that works under the film’s original premise. With a predominantly foreign cast, shot in France (but set in Mexico) by French director Jacques Audiard, the film leaves a lot to be desired.
Warning: spoilers ahead.
The Premise

The film focuses on Emilia Pérez (played by Karla Sofía Gascón), who is firstly known as Manitas Del Montea: a drug kingpin who is tired of hiding his true self. Del Monte hires Rita (Zoe Saldaña), who is an overworked, under-appreciated lawyer to arrange his transition to become a woman. Though reluctant, Rita accepts his request in exchange for a large sum of money. In order to transition, Manitas fakes his death and takes on the name Emilia Pérez. After four years she enlists Rita’s help yet again to reunite with her kids and wife Jessi (Selena Gomez). In a redemption arc, Emilia realizes that her previous role as a cartel leader harmed thousands, feeding into the disappearance crisis in the country. She establishes an organization to give hope to the families of the disappeared.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The film attempts to discuss several issues facing Mexico’s society: corruption, disappearance, cartel violence, self-love and redemption. While seemingly noble, the film engages with this discourse in heavily problematic ways. The musical format is bold, exploring darker and more serious themes through song. The number on vaginoplasty is peak comedy; Emilia’s soft singing about love and identity thou is truly heartfelt. Yet, most of the musical numbers feel lackluster and out of place. The words don’t match, don’t rhyme and often didn’t make sense in Spanish — not to mention the subpar translations. Among the good is Gascón’s acting, which certainly merits award.
The Authenticity Problem

Though it is not the first time a foreign lens tackles issues facing Mexican society, Emilia Pérez does it all wrong. In this case, perhaps the greatest fault of the foreign eye is the seemingly poor researched director, Audiard, who claimed that he “already knew everything [he] needed to know.”
Ironically, the film that wanted to be “as authentic as possible” could not cast a single Mexican actor in a lead role — an affirmation that is at best better laughed off. Casting director, Carla Hool said in an interview that they “did a big search in Mexico and in the U.S. and in Spain and all Latin America,” yet the team found their ideal cast in the likes of Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Karla Sofía Gascón (for reference, Spanish actress Gascón has worked in Mexican media for several years). Adriana Paz, who played Epifanía, Emilia’s love interest, was the only Mexican actress cast in the film.
We wanted to keep it really authentic but at the end of the day the best actors who embodied these characters . . . are right here, so we had to figure out how to adjust authenticity.
— Carla Hool
Clearly, the film suffers from a representation problem. While a transgender woman was cast for Emilia’s role (well done), it failed to cast actors that would best represent the Mexican community — which brings us to the next facet of the problem: language.

Though Selena Gomez might have poured her heart and soul into her role with the little time she had, her disjointed Spanish results in an apparent detachment from her character. It’s like she doesn’t know what she’s saying, only regurgitating words from a script. Well, sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got — and Gomez (and everyone else) didn’t have much to work with. The dialogue itself was strange — words put together in Spanish that would never be uttered in real life by any native speaker. Cue the memes about Gomez’s iconic line juxtaposing colorful Mexican slang with the highly clinical term of ‘vulva.’
Trans Representation

Critics have highlighted that when it comes to trans representation, Emilia Perez misses the mark. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) called out the film’s representation of transgender women, highlighting the film falls into a lot of the same stereotypes of trans people that have abounded in society for several decades. In a piece for Little White Lies, trans writer Juan Barquin noted:
The film’s regressive politics are everywhere, not just in the way Emilia’s transition is presented . . . Men may be no more than props, but no woman’s narrative arc is remotely well-developed . . .
— Juan Barquin
Amongst them, critics argued the film used Emilia’s transition as a parallel to questions of good versus evil. When Emilia reunites with her children under a false identity, she is depicted as loving and joyous. When Jessi reveals she is marrying her boyfriend and taking the children with her, Emilia experiences a moment of violence. She reverts to a more masculine voice, lashing out at Jessi. Though perhaps not intentional, the film ends up equating masculinity to evil and femininity to concepts of ‘good.’
Narco Culture

The film attempts to tell a story that is entrenched in very real issues related cartel violence and organized crime. It takes on a social-justice tone but fails to really send a strong message. Instead, the film falls into the same overused stereotypes. In the climax of the film, Emilia is kidnapped by Jessi and her boyfriend Gustavo, following Emilia’s decision to financially cut Jessi off. In exchange for Emilia, the duo demand money. Rita assembles a group of armed people and agrees to the terms. The exchange resembles the classic scene in any other movie about narcos: Rita arrives on scene, holding up the bag of money; Gustavo refuses to hand over Emilia; a firefight ensues. Remember, this is the same film criticizes the use of violence, yet reverts to violence to solve the main characters’ problems!
In the end they all die: Emilia, Jessi and Gustavo.
The final scene hints at redemption. The public hoists a statue of Emilia; it resembles a saint. Curiously, this practice is not unknown to narco-culture. Most notably, the image of Malverde has been exploited in the past. He represents a ‘narco-saint,’ one not officially recognized by the Catholic church, but one who maintains significance for for those who venerate him. He is heralded as a folk hero and Robin Hood among some Mexicans. For his reputation as a bandit, devotion to his image is common among narcos. In an instance like this, presenting Emilia’s character serves as an uncanny reference to folk practice. It results in an apparent romanticization of narco-culture.
Conclusion
There’s a lot of things that this film wanted to be. Emilia Pérez wanted to be bold and different. Instead, it ends up sending muddied messages, like it’s not sure what it wants to say in the end. It turns out like many other films about narcos. Mexico functions merely as the backdrop for Audiard’s vision. As a result, the country is depicted stereotypically without much depth beyond LED light-clad mariachis, crowded outdoor markets and violence at every corner. Sure, Emilia Pérez is a comedy. At times it’s so ridiculously tone deaf, it reads as a bad joke.
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