Emilia Perez

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez” is a propulsive, lively, and suspenseful adventure focusing on a Mexican drug dealer who wants to transition to a woman. The film is also compelling, vibrant and emotional, and to top it off, it is filled with colorful and engaging music, because surprise, it is a musical. It entertains from start to finish.

Based on Audiard’s opera libretto, which in turn is loosely adapted from Boris Razon’s 2018 novel Écoute, the film stars Zoe Saldana as a lawyer who happens to be at the right place for drama.

Rita (Saldana) is defending a case of celebrity who murders his wife. The famous defendant is acquitted. Then at night after Rita agrees to meet with a new client, she is abducted with a bag over her head and shoved into a car.

The kidnapper is the client who gives her a difficult proposition: to gather information regarding a sex change. The client is no other than the infamous cartel leader Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (trans actor Karla Sofía Gascón). Intimidated by Del Monte, Rita agrees.

Del Monte undergoes the transition and given the pressure that is put upon him, he fakes his death.

This starts a chain of events, a push pull between Rita, the newly transititioned Emilia and Emilia’s former wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) that leads to double hi-test intrigue and conflict.

Karla Sofía Gascón is absolutely magnetic, first as the scary Del Monte and then as the pensive Emilia. Zoe Saldana is terrific as the defense lawyer on a psychological tightrope from one situation to the other. Selena Gomez too is alluring as Del Monte’s wife, fighting for her independence.

The musical numbers are colorful rhythmic and ear-catching, rivaling “West Side Story”. The songs are holistic with motion and meaning, core to the narrative. The music never upstages the plot. All elements are composed organically with not one aspect absent or out of place. This film is the essence of music as well as suspense, creating a seamless hybrid of The Coen Brothers and “Romeo and Juliet.”

From the very first frame, one is riveted by the boundless tension, color and verve, coupled by the ever present empathy in sound.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com