It isn’t often that we are awarded a film that is as audacious in its ambitions as Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez. This unique work is a Mexican drug cartel thriller, a tale of a parent’s unbreakable connection to their children, and a moving human drama about redemption and living one’s true self. It is also a musical. A lot, to be sure. Does it all come together? For a good amount of time, this film works very well as it balances moments of passion and humanity with the wild visual brazenness of a Pedro Almodóvar picture. Audiard’s screenplay (based on the 2018 novel, Écoute, by Boris Razon) is full of big ideas and the filmmaker dives in with extreme self-confidence. 

Throughout his career, the director has always traversed different genres. From romantic drama (2001’s Read My Lips) to prison thriller (2009’s A Prophet) to Western (2018’s The Sisters Brothers), Audiard has proven himself to be one of the more unique and adventurous artists working today, as he uses different genres to examine the human condition. Mirroring the essence of the film’s titular character, Emilia Pérez reveals its layered story in an undeniably captivating manner, with its bold musical interludes peppered throughout.

In what is perhaps one of her finest performances, Zoe Saldana stars as Rita Mora Castro, Mexico City defense attorney who specializes in getting acquittals for some of the area’s most hardcore criminals. As her moral scales are becoming too imbalanced for her to stomach it all, Rita is procured by one of the most feared cartel leaders around, Manita Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascón). The drug kingpin wants her to help fake his death, go into hiding, and find the right doctor who will help him transition to a woman, who will become Emilia Pérez. No one is to know, especially his two sons and his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez, on complete fire). Rita helps Jessi  and the children escape to Switzerland, getting them safe and far from their violent world. 

As Rita settles in London, a night at a posh dinner party leads to an encounter with Emilia (whom Rita has yet to meet). Revealing that this is no chance meeting, Emilia asks Rita for one last task, to bring Jessi and her boys to Mexico to live with her, telling them that Emilia is Del Monte’s cousin.

The redemption story is quite profound and the main character carries the film’s strongest moments. As Emilia steadfastly rejects who she once was, she uses her wealth to start a nonprofit organization to help find the missing victims of the cartels. As she was once part of that darkness, it will be her newfound light that will redeem her. Embracing the beating heart of her truth, Emilia even finds love with a woman, Epifanía (Adriana Paz), who has come to find out whether her abusive boyfriend is dead or alive. That their bond is born of the both sides of life Emilia has experienced is one of the screenplay’s more fascinating aspects. 

Add to the mix, Gustavo Brun (Edgar Ramírez), the man with whom Jessie cheated during her marriage, Emilia Pérez becomes a Telenovela come to life; albeit one with realistic intensity and a more authentic dramatic power.

While all of this is layed out quite nicely, Audiard too-often shifts the tone, occasionally losing his grip on the film’s focus. Karla Sofía Gascón is tremendous at embodying such a uniquely designed character, but Audiard’s script overuses her symbolic presence. It is up to the actress to bring off Emilia’s complexities and get to the soul of her character. Gascón does so with skill and grace.

While Jessi never rises above the put-upon wife of a drug dealer cliché, Selena Gomez gives a power and sexual heat to her performance. Jessi’s moments with Emilia have possibilities, but their interactions aren’t given enough screen time and their adversarial relationship hits too many familiar beats. Gomez livens up her scenes by going all in, reaching for something deeper within Jessi and completely devouring her musical moments.

It is the musical numbers that take Emilia Pérez to the tip of its outlandish individuality. Composed by Clément Ducol and Camille, some of the musical interludes work while others frustrate. An opening number with Rita dancing and singing after a trial date is disjointed enough to give one pause. While there are more than a few moments where dramatic dialogue would have hit harder than a song and dance number, a few blend well with the characters and their collective stories. 

Saldana gets a striking number where Rita musically chastises a group of rich society folk and their complacency and complicitness in the cartel violence in Mexico. Selena Gomez gets a moment tailor made to her singing and dancing abilities, where Jessi embraces her needs and desires. Both of these scenes are alive with the cinematography from Paul Guilhaume (who paints the music and the drama with a vibrant visual canvas) and some fantastic choreography by Damien Jalet.

The film’s most tender and soulful scene is a quietly powerful song Emilia’s son sings to her about how much she smells like his papa. For the young boy, her presence is a memory of love and in that moment, the parent and their unaware child have never been closer. In a film of raw emotion, this is the most poignant.

Unfortunately, Audiard doesn’t handle the rest of the music so smoothly. Many of the songs and their lyrics become tedious and the singing is too-often abruptly inserted, causing the story to become disjointed and many of the musical numbers to feel sloppy and redundant. There will be times when one pleads with the characters to refrain from singing and let the story breathe. 

A fable in design (which allows for some flights of cinematic fancy to go down easier) the final act fumbles badly. In a departure from all that came before, the director pilots his film into a sea of ridiculous melodrama. The themes of violence, love, and redemption are molded into childish symbolism where all the parts of Emila’s life collide and fate stands waiting. The film’s characters are caught in a standard crime drama finale that feels as if Audiard threw it in just to see what sticks. The last act is a betrayal of the great work from the cast and the good graces of the screenplay’s intentions. 

Undeniably full of imagination, the film’s strengths are large enough for Emilia Pérez to overcome the disjointed directorial flourishes and allow one to forgive the misguided finale. This is a tale of sacrifice, survival, and identity that boldly defies convention and dares you to define it. 

It is impossible to ignore the purity of the performances and the message within the screenplay. If one gives themselves over to such a unique vision, the good outshines the bad. Uneven and sometimes frustrating, Jauques Audiard has created something distinctive and emotionally rewarding that speaks volumes regarding the world of today. 

Emilia Pérez

Written and Directed by Jaques Audiard

Starring Karla Sofia Gascón, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Mark Ivanir, Édgar Ramírez

R, 132 Minutes, Pathé, Why Not Productions, Page 114