Review of Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard

For the past few years, before I started working on this blog part-time, I worked as a film critic at an online outlet. At the time of typing this I’ve been out of that job for about six months, and I honestly prefer working as my own agent at this point. I make more money doing freelance, although it was nice having press credentials for film festivals to do work there.

Anyways, because I worked as a critic, I had my thumb on all the new releases over the course of the years. You had to be because you had to get on a lead, or press would email you inviting you to advance screenings and asking if you wanted to interview the talent and crew. But when I quit that job, I lost some aspect of being able to keep in touch with what’s new.

I still try my hardest to keep my thumb on the pulse of the industry. It helps if you’re viewing blogging as a more news-esque platform to react to the latest trends and keep an eye out for what might be the content you want to cover. That’s how I kept watching the press for Emilia Pérez months before it came out.

I was watching the early reactions to the movie for a while, but avoided reading any other reviews to not spoil my viewing of the film. I always try to do that when writing a review and summary post—I don’t like other people’s opinions clouding mine. But as soon as the movie came out on Netflix, I watched it right away.

I don’t want to ramble too much, as this is going to be a lengthy blog post. Let’s get into the review!

A Mexican lawyer is recruited to help a cartel boss transition into a woman and disappear from the world.

Our protagonist in this movie we meet immediately: she’s Rita Mora Castro, and she’s been a lawyer since she was 24. She doesn’t feel too appreciated in the Mexican law system, and she spends her time recently trying to write the defense for the murder of a prominent media figure’s wife in the country.

She seems aware of the corruption from the musical number she sings in the beginning while writing the defense, but we start to see she no longer feels appreciated or doing work that she actually wants to do. Her team wins the case, but when she goes to the bathroom after the celebration, she gets a call from a big cartel figure in Mexico: Juan Del Monte, or Manitas.

Rita meets and talks with him. Turns out he wants to transition into a woman, as he never felt like he was in the right body all of his life. She does end up taking him on as a client, then goes to Bangkok and Tel Aviv to try and find a doctor who will do it. A doctor does ultimately end up agreeing after hearing about Manitas’ struggle with gender dsyphoria throughout their life.

Manitas’ wife, Jessi, and their kids are relocated to Switzerland, as they need to be able to make Manitas disappear off the map. Jessi is distraught by this, crying about how she would rather go to the United States, but Rita assures her this is for her safety. Manitas goes for the surgery and becomes Emilia Pérez, paying Rita a lot of money, and Manitas’ death is faked.

Four years pass. Rita lives a more luxurious life due to the money, but then runs into Emilia while at a more lavish dinner. Rita has no idea who Emilia is until they start talking, but then she realizes what happened as they chat more. Emilia wants to see her kids, and Rita arranges it so that Jessi and their kids go to live with Emilia in Mexico City. Emilia is introduced as a distant cousin of Manitas, but Jessi is kind of weirded out by her reactions.

Jessi doesn’t agree with this at all, and only agrees with the scenario because she can reunite with someone she had an affair with during her time with Manitas: Gustavo. Everyone returns back to Mexico, but when Emilia runs into the mother of a missing child while in the markets of Mexico City with Rita, she has to grapple with the fact she was a criminal who majorly messed people’s lives up.

She then creates a nonprofit that works to identify the bodies of cartel victims, using Rita as an employee to grow its influence. They get some donors and donations, but Rita realizes some of these people aren’t very well-intentioned at heart. Things go even deeper when Emilia starts a relationship with one of the women who’s husband was a cartel victim.

At the same time, Jessi is beginning a new relationship with Gustavo. They’re going to get married and move into a new home, but when Emilia says the kids are hers in front of Jessi, she takes them and leaves. Emilia goes after Gustavo then, so Jessi and Gustavo kidnap Emilia and ransom her to Rita.

When Rita shows up, the guns come out and things get violent. But then Emilia tells Jessi she is Manitas, revealing information that only Manitas would know, Gustavo and Jessi put her in the trunk. As they start driving, Jessi realizes what happened here and tells Gustavo to pull over. She pulls out the gun and holds it up to him while he’s driving, and he veers off the road and kills all of them.

Rita then has to tell their kids what happened. She offers to be their guardian from now on. The movie ends with Emilia’s female lover from earlier going to the streets and telling her story.

Overall Thoughts

Well, this movie was an experience. I can either see people loving or hating this movie, but I’m firmly in the middle. The musical elements didn’t work for me, as it felt too unnatural and forced for the tone of the movie. I would’ve preferred this to be a straight up crime drama rather than a crime musical.

All of the performances are great, though. I was impressed the most with Selena Gomez, as I’ve never seen her do so well in a role, especially in Spanish. I haven’t been a fan of some of her other shows and movies, but she did a great job in this movie. Everyone did really good overall though!

The story is interesting in this one too. I think I might’ve preferred it as a television show to a movie, as I wanted to spend a bit more time with these characters and their stories.

It felt a tad rushed with some plot lines, especially after Jessi’s number returning to “aunt’s” house and calling up Gustavo again. It tried to do too much in such a small amount of time, which I could see be polarizing for people too.

I do commend the filmmaker for making something this brave. It’s not confined to one genre, and the musical aspect was going outside of the box. I’d like to watch more of their work later!

Go watch this if it interests you and you have the time! I’d say it’s worth watching at least once.

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