“Emilia Perez” is a musical about transgender transition and one of the possible Oscar contenders.

Four actresses from this film received awards at Cannes

Jacques Audiard's crime musical "Emilia Perez" has been released on Netflix. In 2024, at the Cannes Film Festival, four actresses who played in the film - Zoe Saldana, Carla Gascon, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz - received the prize for Best Actress. Audiard directed a four-act film about the head of a Mexican criminal gang who made a transgender transition - and became Emilia Perez. Meduza film critic Anton Dolin explains why, despite the enthusiasm of the audience in Cannes, this film looks controversial.

A Spanish-language musical set in Mexico, directed by a French director and featuring an international cast. A sentimental drama about a cartel leader who decides to transition to transgender. A story of love for a man, a woman, children, but above all, for oneself.

All the shortcomings in “Emilia Perez” will be made up for by the whimsicality of the concept, the unconventionality of the application, and the hybridity of the genre. That is why Jacques Audiard's film caused such enthusiasm and controversy in Cannes, receiving the Jury Prize and the Small Palm for four actresses, and is now considered one of the most likely contenders for the main trophies of the season - from the Golden Globe to the Oscar.

The title character appears around the fortieth minute of the film. Before that, we are watching a crime thriller about another character - the talented lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana, who is known from Avatar and Guardians of the Galaxy, plays completely differently, and in several scenes she also dances well, recalling her ballet past) . She has just helped acquit an influential wife-killer and now feels a deep sense of guilt, but an unexpected job pulls her out of the abyss: the formidable boss of the largest criminal group, Manitas, offers to find a surgeon for him for a huge fee.

For two years now, the stern bandit, who has terrified the entire country, has been taking hormones in preparation for his transgender transition. He wants to change his name, face and identity, dying to the world and turning into Emilia Perez. But it’s not a matter of conspiracy: Manitas really knew from childhood that he was not born in his own body. An important and complex dual role is played by Spaniard Carla Sofia Gascon, the first transgender actress to win the prestigious prize at Cannes.

The gloomy and rhythmic first act of the film (originally a script - a libretto for a four-act opera) combines social realism with the conventions of a modern musical - a genre that can at one moment turn the screen into an empty, dark stage. Clément Ducol's score and original songs by French pop-rock diva Kamiya help tell the story clearly, but often help move the script along rather than captivate with bright melodies (one borrowed from Interstellar).

Saldana professionally leads the action forward, drifting from fear and confusion to hope for the success of a risky venture. Her heroine is not afraid of meeting the creepy Manitas, or delicate negotiations with surgeons from Bangkok and Tel Aviv (a brief but striking appearance by Mark Ivanir, an Israeli actor originally from Ukraine, known for “Schindler’s List” and “Homeland,” adorns the film) .

And then, with the birth of Emilia Perez, it’s as if another movie begins.

In Cannes, four actresses were awarded at once, which happens very rarely (the previous time was in 2006, when the jury of Wong Kar-Wai gave the prize to six performers from Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Return”). It seems that Audiard decided to give each of them a film. Saldana plays the story of professional evolution: from legal cynicism to selfless human rights advocacy; but by the middle of the picture, the author sharply loses interest in it and does not react even to frank complaints (“I’m forty years old, my personal life is a desert,” admits Rita). This is understandable, because moral rebirth is much more exciting.

Having become Emilia, the former criminal discovers himself to be a gentle, empathic and compassionate person, whose former nature rarely makes itself felt. Together with Rita, they open a charity organization that helps search for and identify the bodies of those killed at the hands of the mafia - as if Manitas himself had not been a mass murderer for many years. The author implies that Emilia is a different person.

But that's not all. Nearby, Jessie, the American wife and now widow of Manitas and the mother of his two children, is undergoing her own transformation (Audiard tries very hard to build a full-fledged story arc for the former teen television star Selena Gomez, but only manages one decent musical number). Only the viewer has time to sympathize with her when the fourth heroine appears on stage - Epifania, Emilia’s new love, a survivor of domestic violence. Now she is happy that her rapist husband was found dead. The role is temperamentally embodied by the Mexican Adriana Paz.

Audiard, now 72, has won prestigious awards from around the world, including the Palme d'Or and the Cannes Grand Prix. It would hardly be fair to suspect the director that he is still searching for himself. Simply, having reached the top in national cinema, he began an international career. First, he mixed cultures and languages ​​using familiar material in “Deepan,” then he ventured into an almost real American western in “The Sisters Brothers,” and now he went to Mexico—albeit an imaginary one, because the set of “Emilia Perez” was built near Paris. It is not surprising that thematically he is most interested in the plot of renewal and rebirth: “My Heart Stopped Beating”, “The Prophet”, “Deepan”, and now a new film were shot about this.

But does a bold experiment necessarily end in success? Is the transformation of the hero really bound to make Audiard a different director? This year, the same radical gesture was made by the same Almodovar, switching to English in “The Next Room” - and completely abandoning the former humor, as if the era itself demands such changes even from established artists. The result in both cases causes mixed feelings. And Audiard also enters the territory of Almodóvar (only early), feeling insecure there. Camp is not his element, and anguish instead of irony is a false intonation for a postmodern musical.

The author does not have enough space and time, and perhaps knowledge of the material, to seriously immerse himself in the topic of transgender transition - in “Emilia Perez” he looks unconvincing; everyone, including the Israeli surgeon, has to take Manitas' words and feelings on faith. Audiard can hardly say anything original about the criminal situation and widespread corruption in Mexico. He fails to come up with even one truly original musical number. There are so many characters that they crowd into the screen space, not allowing each other to tell their story to the end, many of their actions and mood changes look unmotivated. And the interweaving of individual plots towards the end more and more resembles a soap opera. But what, then, is this sophisticated and, one must admit, unique film actually about?

I'll try to guess. It is hardly a coincidence that in “Emilia Perez” there is not a single convincing, humane or simply likable male character (except, again, the surgeon from Tel Aviv), but all the female ones literally demand the sympathy of the public. The bottom line is something like this: male nature is vicious, it is prone to dominance and violence, almost always and everywhere. But if a man changes gender, he will immediately reveal maternal instincts, the ability to love and a sense of social responsibility.

Decide for yourself whether you are ready to accept this thesis - even as a polemical artistic game. And at the same time, consider what could have motivated the French director - sincere creative adventurism or an opportunistic desire to satisfy the demands of the market, collecting a complete set of fashionable themes in one film.

Anton Dolin