Selena Gomez and Marvel star Zoe Saldana star in the unique, exciting Netflix movie Emilia Pérez, which explores the story of a Mexican cartel leader who asks a lawyer to help them fake their death and pursue gender reassignment surgery. And the film just landed on Netflix.
It's rumoured to be a potential nomination for the Best Picture Oscar, so it most certainly should be on your radar.
Emilia Pérez has been described as a “transgender cartel musical” and “a musical story of rebirth”, and loosely based on the 2018 novel Écoute by Boris Razon.
So far, the film has had a mixed reception. While some critics have raved about its wild, genre-bending boldness, others have noted that it offers an arguably reductive, dated portrayal of trans women.
Time raved that it feels “like movie fireworks, fierce and glorious, a radical act of the imagination with kindness in its heart.” Slate gushed that Emilia Perez is “a character (and a movie) that’s all about the never-finished project of learning to become yourself.”
On the other hand, the Independent's Clarisse Loughrey wrote, “Audiard seems disinterested in what the trans experience might materially be like. Instead, he renders Emilia and her pre-transition self as two entirely different, disconnected people, as if he only sees his trans lead as a metaphor, an opportunity to explore his own thoughts on rebirth and second chances. There’s a slight whiff of reductive gender essentialism here: the notion that womanhood is purity manifest, that Lady Macbeth was always clear of her damned spots.” Similarly, The Cut wrote, “I expect that a filmmaker so taken by the concept of transitioning, one who’s displayed a certain level of conscious sensitivity in his previous efforts to depict lives unlike his own, to at least display an informed understanding of what that concept actually looks like in practice.”
Others still have been more neutral. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw, for instance, described it as a “slightly bizarre yet watchable musical melodrama."
Here's what we know so far about Emilia Pérez.
Emilia Pérez plot
The film's plot synopsis reads as follows: “Rita [played by Zoe Saldana], an underrated lawyer working for a large law firm more interested in getting criminals out of jail than bringing them to justice, is hired by the leader of a criminal organisation.” The twist? This leader of a Mexican cartel leader wants Rita to help fake their own death and undergo gender reassignment operations “so that Emilia can finally live authentically as her true self”.
The story is set to be told “through liberating song and dance and bold visuals, following the journey of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness”.
Emilia Pérez cast
Joining Karla, Zoe and Selena in the Emilia Pérez cast will be Adriana Paz and Édgar Ramírez. Zoe has spoken out about the journey her character goes on in the movie.
“Rita wishes that she would just have this one opportunity, just any opportunity that will make her break out and break this glass ceiling that she finds herself never being able to shatter,” she told Netflix's TUDUM. “And when the opportunity presents itself, she doesn’t think twice. She just takes it.”
Selena Gomez plays Jessi, Emilia's wife – and Rita also navigates a close relationship with her as she and their children adjust to the change.
Spanish trans actor Karla Sofía Gascón will play the title character and has described the movie as “a musical that is not a musical, an action movie that’s not an action movie, a drama that’s not a drama, a comedy that’s not a comedy”.
She has also faced a serious amount of Oscar buzz – and would make history as the first openly trans actress to be nominated – but has been adamant she wants the focus to be on her performance, not awards.
Emilia Pérez release date
The film was released in UK cinemas on 25 October and dropped on Netflix on 13 November.
Emilia Pérez trailer
Get a taster of the drama, music, comedy, love and empowerment that permeates Emilia Pérez here.
