Emilia Pérez - A Review: A “Trans” For You To Be Heard
I do not mean “trans-national” though that is a good place to start.
Guns? Hearts? Flowers? Yeah, this is Mexican as hell.
Looking for something to do on a Friday night, I grabbed a ticket to see Emilia Pérez at the Alamo Drafthouse. I had not heard anything about this film. I planned to see Here with Tom Hanks, but after talking with my Austin-based friend, Courtney, I figured that film might be too sad. I wanted some Friday fun! So instead of Tom Hanks and the woman from Princess Bride, I saw Emilia Pérez because it was a musical. No one makes sad musicals, right?!
That was a terrible mistake.
Emilia Pérez was more sad than Here could ever be. Also, I've never seen Les Misérable which I've heard is overwhelmingly 1860s sad. Being wrong in this case was not fun. This sad ass musical turned me out. I had my world turned upside down watching this. I'm still trying to decide if it was worth it or not.
Whoa… What is Emilia Pèrez about?
… then Zoe Saldaña was like, “What!”
This film starts with Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana) working as a lawyer, writing a defense speech for a criminal she is sure killed his wife. Unfortunately, her bosses are getting Zoe to say it was a suicide. She sings and dances her way through this assignment and hands it over to her boss who does all the courtroom legwork. Due to being the best legal team in Mexico, they get their client off and Zoe Saldaña feels like shit about it. Luckily for her, she gets a call from someone telling her to go to a nearby newsstand if she wants to be rich.
Did I mention this is all happening in Mexico? Because it is. Everyone speaks whatever language they speak. In Mexico, they speak Spanish. In Bangkok or Israel, they speak English. Zoe Saldaña can do both, so I'm sure she's having a great time in Emilia Pérez.
So Zoe is waiting around by the newsstand. A car pulls up, puts a bag over her head, and abducts her. Once she gets where she needs to be Zoe keeps the bag on her head to afraid to take it off and find out where she is. This is where Zoe meets Juan "Manitas" Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón), the head of a cartel and a dangerous man sitting on several million dollars. He tells Zoe that if he tells her what he wants that means Zoe accepts it. Before telling her, Manitas shows her the contract of all the accounts and the millions that will belong to her once he speaks his secret. The situation that Zoe is in makes her the perfect to take on this assignment due to her hating her legal firm and the bosses who run it. After looking over the contract, she hands it back to the drug lord and says that she is down to work with him.
Manitas wants to be a woman.
Pick your favorite! And remember… this is a safe space.
This big-time cartel-running killer has been thinking about killing himself due to being in what feels like the wrong body. The thug of all thugs doesn’t want the responsibility of running things anymore. He just wants to live out the dream he’s had since he was a child. Juan "Manitas" Del Monte wants to complete the process and become a woman. Zoe Saldaña's job is to handle Manitas' transition, put his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and their two kids in a new part of the world, and she better be quick about it or get her head wrapped in plastic which completely happens to her at one point.
Saldaña flies all over the world and eventually settles on Israel as the place for Manitas to have his transition. Manitas is already two years into his transition and wants to take his money and leave his old life behind including his wife and their kids. It's a gamble, but it works! Zoe finds the place and Manitas gets the surgery he needs to become a woman and takes on the name "Emilia Pérez."
Four years later:
I also did not know Ms. Saldaña could move like that.
Emilia manages to reach Zoe Saldaña in London where she's uprooted herself and achieved a new legal career unattached from her previous, corrupted bosses. She has transitioned and has been enjoying those millions she got from Manitas. While Zoe is at a fancy dinner with her new friends she ends up having a conversation in Spanish with a woman sitting a seat away. Emilia Pèrez has come to the same dinner Zoe. It takes Zoe a few minutes to realize who Emilia is and hope she hasn’t shown up to kill her. Emilia and Zoe have a sing-off that cements who this Emilia woman is.
After four long years, Emilia decides she can't live without her children and asks Zoe to move the family back to Mexico. Only now, Emilia Pérez is known as a Manitas’ distant cousin and introduces herself to the kids as “Aunt Emilia.” When the family reconnects, Emilia gives out too much “fatherly love” to the kids, almost forgetting about the difficult transition he was desperate for four years ago. From the beginning of her family's return to Mexico, Manitas’ wife Selena Gomez is suddenly angry about being trapped. The kids miss skiing. Emilia’s former self has been dead since four years ago. This is going to be difficult to keep up with but it's a good thing for Emilia Perez that nobody other than Zoe Saldaña can recognize her.
Unsure of what to do with life back in Mexico, Emilia and Zoe run across a Mexican woman who is looking for her son who has been missing since 2013. She’s singing a song and handing out papers with her missing son’s pictures on them. In that moment, Emilia gets an idea. About 100,000 people disappear every year in Mexico. Emilia decides to use her considerable resources to find out what happened to all the missing people and creates a charity organization. She convinces Zoe Saldaña to stay in Mexico and interview all the criminals to begin this new task. There is a lot of movie after that, but I don’t want to spoil anything.
Should I Watch Emilia Pérez?
I'm not sure. Here's a short quiz to help you out.
Do you like French movies where all the plot and song lyrics are in Spanish?
Can you handle subtitles?
Can you NOT be a transphobe?
On a scale from 1 - 10, how much hate is in your heart?
Depending on how many yeses and small numbers you put down, you might enjoy Emilia Pérez throughout all the sadness it’s pushing you to.
Selena… something… I already forgot.
I think I liked it, but it's hard to tell. Interesting start, an incredible middle, and a terrible ending… at least from what happens to some people in this story. I'm curious if I would have gone to see this movie if I had seen a trailer or anything about it. Still... I'm happy that I took the leap and decided to watch something I'd never heard of before.
Years ago, I tried a similar thing with Zoe Saldaña when I went out and watched Colombiana in which Zoe was a little girl who turned to an assassin. I did not care for that film. I don’t remember it well, but the trailer set me up for much violence but gave me many assassin tears instead. Still, I know how important it is to go out and support Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy. If I made movies I’d want her to go out and watch mine. It’s also fun to see movies you know nothing about from time to time.
So if you would like to increase the amount of transgender cinema you've encountered, Emilia Pérez is an excellent place to start. The musical scenes operate similarly to Chicago in that they're all dream-like sequences. In song, what you see isn't what is happening as people in the scenes start dancing and singing along. The songs in this movie are real and beautiful. The singers even counter each other when there is a difference in opinion. That’s what helps sell the interesting plot.
So let's not hear anything about a lack of new movies or a dearth of ideas. If Emilia Pèrez has proven anything, if someone says they can't find anything new to watch they are not trying hard enough.
