Review: ‘Emilia Pérez,’ starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez

January 5, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Emilia Pérez”

Directed by Jacques Audiard

Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place from 2018 to 2023, mostly in Mexico (and briefly in Thailand, England, Israel, and Switzerland), the musical film “Emilia Pérez” (based on the operetta of the ame name) features a predominantly Latin cast of characters (with some black people and white people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A ruthless drug cartel leader enlists the help of an attorney to get gender affirmation surgery as a woman named Emilia Pérez, but things get complicated when she has her unsuspecting former wife and kids live with her.

Culture Audience: “Emilia Pérez” will appeal primarily to fans of the movie’s headliners and unconventional movie musicals that have better performances than songs or screenplays.

“Emilia Pérez” (about a transgender former drug trafficker) is a musical but it’s more like an artsy telenova. The performances are the main reason to watch this uneven movie that has a messy screenplay and mediocre songs. “Emilia Pérez” is not even close to being the masterpiece might be hyped up to be some of the movie’s biggest fans. However, the dramatic parts of the film are watchable enough for viewers who are curious to see how the story is going to end.

Written and directed by Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez” is based on Audiard’s operetta of the same name, which was inspired by Boris Razon’s 2018 novel “Écoute.” The word “écoute” means “listen” in French. “Emilia Pérez” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where the movie won the Grand Jury Prize (the equivalent of second place); Best Soundtrack; and Best Actress, with the prize shared by “Emilia Pérez” co-stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz. “Emilia Pérez” is also France’s official entry for consideration for Best International Feature Film for the 2025 Academy Awards.

“Emilia Pérez” (which takes place mostly in Mexico) begins in 2018, by showing a 36-year-old defense attorney named Rita Morena Castro (played by Zoe Saldaña), who was born in the Dominican Republic but has been living in Mexico for years because she was educated in Mexico. Rita is having conflicted feelings as she prepares for a murder trial in Mexico City. Her client Gabriel Mendoza (played by Emiliano Hasan) is accused of murdering his wife. Rita suspects he is guilty, but her supervisor/lead defense attorney Berlinger (played by Eduardo Aladro) has decided that their strategy is to say that Gabriel is not guilty because Gabriel’s wife committed suicide. Gabriel ends up being found not guilty by a jury.

Rita is feeling unfulfilled in her life. In the musical number “Todo y nada” (which means “everything and nothing” in Spanish), Rita mentions she’s becoming disillusioned with her work, and she’s tired of people asking her why she’s not married and has no children. Rita also wants to start her own law firm, but she doesn’t have the money and thinks she’ll experience obstacles because of her race. (She identifies as Afro-Latina.)

Shortly after this verdict, Rita is in a courthouse restroom when she gets a strange phone call from an unidentified man, who tells her if she wants to become rich, she needs to go to a nearby newsstand in 10 minutes. It’s under these circumstances that a curious Rita goes to the newsstand. She is kidnapped on the street while waiting at the newsstand. Rita is taken in a van, where she meets her kidnapper while she has a hood over her head.

The kidnapper is a drug cartel boss named Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (played by Karla Sofía Gascón), who has a very unusual request. Manitas has been living as a man, but Manitas really identifies as a transgender female and has felt this way since childhood. Manitas wants Rita’s help to find a safe place to get gender-affirming surgery, and then fake Manitas’ death, so that Manitas can start a new life living openly as a woman with a new name.

Rita knows about Manitas’ reputation for being a ruthless criminal. However, she relates to Manitas feeling “stuck” and wanting a drastic life change. The money that Manitas wants to pay Rita would also make her a millionaire, so she accepts this offer with little hesitation. Of course, being kidnapped and pressured into this taking this offer is a big reason why Rita says yes to Manitas.

Manitas has a wife named Jessi (played by Gomez) and two sons: Diego (played by Lucas Varoclier) and Angel (played by Théo Guarin, who are about 4 and 6 years old at the time of Rita’s kidnapping. Jessi (whose full name is Jessica) was born in the United States and still has several family members living there. Jessi is a loving parent to the children, but she remains a bit of a hollow enigma throughout the story.

Manitas plans to have Jessi, Diego and Angel live in Switzerland, where Jessi doesn’t really know anyone. Rita has been tasked with telling Jessi that Jessi and the children have to go into hiding in Switzerland because Manitas’ criminal enemies want to harm them. Manitas death will then be faked, so that Manitas can start a new life as a woman.

“Emilia Pérez” (which has a total running time of 132 minutes) takes an awfully long time before Manitas gets gender affirmation surgery, which doesn’t happen until about 40 minutes into the movie. Before that, there are some very contrived-looking scenes of Rita going to the Thai city of Bangkok and the Israeli city of Tel Aviv to find the place that will give the surgery. She decides to choose a surgeon named Dr. Wasserman (played by Mark Ivanir) in Israel to give Manitas the procedure. The musical scenes for this search for a surgeon have the weakest songs in the movie.

After the surgery, Manitas has been reinvented as a bachelorette named Emilia Pérez (also played by Gascón), although she uses the title Señora (Mrs.) for her name. Four years later, Emilia and Rita see each other again at a dinner party in a London restaurant. Rita is surprised to see Emilia there but soon finds out that Emilia planned for Rita to be there.

Emilia wants Rita’s help again: This time, Emilia wants Rita to bring Jessi, Diego and Angel over from Switzerland to live with Emilia in Mexico. (Gaël Murguia-Fur has the role of older Angel. Tirso Rangel Pietriga has the role of older Diego.) Emilia explains that she misses her children and she wants Rita’s assistance in telling Jessi, Diego and Angel that Emilia is a distant cousin of Manitas, who gave her some inheritance money to take care of them financially.

For a while, the plan works. At first, Jessi is a little suspicious over how Emilia is overly affectionate with Diego and Angel. And at times, Emilia slips up when she describes Dego and Angel as her kids. (The children call her Auntie.) Overall, the family is harmonious but this wouldn’t be telenova-type of story if things continued to go smoothly.

Because Manitas is supposed to be dead, Emilia doesn’t mind that Jessi has a lover named Gustavo Brun (played by Edgar Ramírez), whose occupation is unclear. However, it’s implied that whatever he does for money is suspicious. What Emilia doesn’t know is that Jessi and Gustavo were secret lovers when Jessi and Manitas were married. Although Jessi says that she loved Manitas, she apparently married Manitas when they were very young, and she wasn’t sure if Manitas still loved her.

Emilia feels guilty about all the murders she was responsible for when she was a drug cartel boss, so she reinvents herself as a philanthropist who has started a nonprofit charity to find missing people whose disapperances are believed to be related to drug cartels. Rita works as Emilia’s attorney for this charity and is morally conflicted when Emilia solicits donations from rich criminals. It’s during this charity work that Emilia meets Epifanía Flores (played by Paz), whose missing husband’s body was found by Emilia’s workers. Emilia and Epifanía have an instant attraction and become intimately involved with each other.

“Emilia Pérez” has moments that are thoroughly engaging, especially in the scenes where Emilia and Rita are interacting with each other. But the first third of the movie is somewhat confusing because it looks more like Rita’s story. For a movie called “Emilia Pérez,” it’s a bit of creative misstep that the title character appears so late in the movie.

Another flaw in the movie is the relationship between Jessi and Gustavo is not shown enough for viewers to understand what Jessi sees in him. All that viewers will see about the romantic part of their relationship is that Jessi likes to talk dirty to him over the phone, they’re definitely in lust, and they like to have sexy dances with each other when they go out to a nightclub. Gomez is adequate in her role as Jessi, who is an underdeveloped character.

“Emilia Pérez” is also sketchy with details over why Emilia has so much financial control over Jessi and the kids. As the “widow” of Manitas, Jessi would be entitled to a lot more that what she gets, in terms of an inheritance and financial independence. Viewers can only conclude that Jessi must be less-than-smart if she believes everything that Rita tells her and willingly goes to live with a “cousin-in-law” whom Jessi has never met before and knows almost nothing about. Jessi’s financial dependence on Emilia is crucial to a major plot development in the last third of the film.

Gascón (who is a transgender woman in real life) and Saldaña are the obvious standouts with their committed performances. Saldaña’s song-and-dance number of “El Mal” during a charity event is a highlight of the movie. Gascón also excels in her dual roles as Emilia and Manitas. “Emilia Pérez” blends romance, action and drama into a poutpourri that isn’t thoroughly appealing because of some plot holes, unanswered questions, and songs that are underwhelming. However, the personalities of Emilia and Rita are interesting enough to keep viewers engaged in story that isn’t often seen on screen.

Netflix released “Emilia Pérez” in select U.S. cinemas on November 1, 2024. Netflix premiered the movie for streaming on November 13, 2024.