Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, 2024)

[Never Cursed]

Even in the context of a year which has already seen several awards films fizzle or crash out, it is difficult to recall a film's importance to The Season so completely exploding as one did today, when Emilia Pérez hit streaming. Ignore your fond memories of the discourse surrounding a Licorice Pizza or a Malcolm and Marie, head to Twitter, and watch a film's Oscar prospects crumple against the hard truth of what the film actually is, in the manner of Wile E. Coyote against a painted backdrop. The denizens of that site have even been so kind as to provide a few scattered examples (all spoiler-free unless you don't wanna know the basic premise, so click away) of the film's fundamental wrong-ness of approach, which makes everyone's opinion-formulating jobs a whole lot easier. The choreography and staging are bad, but unlike with most modern film musicals, they are not the root cause of the problem - Jacques Audiard and his collaborators have gamely attempted to translate the artificial and setbound qualities of older musicals to modern settings and grammar. Sure there isn't anything so previously ubiquitous but now bravura and rare as a long take showcasing a dance number with minimal clutter or obstruction (if only the film had cast, say, a famous pop singer who could presumably pull such a thing off), but there is evidence of serious effort across the film. The real problem is that these elements of the film are subordinated to a series of grossly ill-conceived liberal political messages that only highlight how little the filmmakers understand what their film is about. In fact, the film makes mistakes at each level of its approach to these issues.

Spoiled out of caution, but you can probably read thisShow

For example: the search for the disappeared victims of cartel violence is...already not a great topic for a musical to tackle. The way Audiard's characters try to solve the problem, an NGO reliant on volunteers and donations from the complicit rich, is a bad solution in ways that the film is kind of not really prepared to address (and in any event does not address beyond Saldana's "fuck the rich" song, which its doesn't really get to the problem, because its punchline is "let's milk the assholes who are causing the issue"). Karla Sofía Gascón's character is really operating the NGO to atone for her past sins and become more of a woman, itself linked to the film's unbelievably offensive portrayal of the trans experience that I think should be evident to any intelligent viewer. Finally, we learn about the charity in a song that is at once stolen from Annette (the "Six Women" sequence) and features as mouthpieces cartoon representations of Mexicans in the most obvious possible ways impacted by cartel violence.

And this is my real issue with the movie: the expressive, at-times interesting artificiality of the mise-en-scène is used to construct a Mexico that is transparently fake, wrong in its details, and only didactically affected by social problems. Audiard has invented an essentially orientalist way of looking at a country more geographically Western than his own, one that borrows aesthetic and political particulars in the process of making a spectacle to gawk at.

[domino harvey]

The denizens of that site have even been so kind as to provide a few scattered examples (all spoiler-free unless you don't wanna know the basic premise, so click away) of the film's fundamental wrong-ness of approach, which makes everyone's opinion-formulating jobs a whole lot easier.

THIS is what has consistently been a top five Oscar contender all year?! The only people who could possibly be happy right now are extinction accelerationists, because Rome is crumbling y’all

[Never Cursed]

If the second Joker movie was better-received, the Picture lineup could have contained three musicals (this, that, and Wicked), all of which seem practically covered in thorns and barbs. What a lineup you could have been obligated to see

EDIT: Also, this received the Jury Prize and Best Actress (for all the leads) at Cannes, for context

[gubbelsj]

If the second Joker movie was better-received, the Picture lineup could have contained three musicals (this, that, and Wicked), all of which seem practically covered in thorns and barbs. What a lineup you could have been obligated to see

EDIT: Also, this received the Jury Price and Best Actress (for all the leads) at Cannes, for context

I just remembered that back in May of this year, David Jenkins posted on Letterboxd the following review in its entirety: "This will be torn to shreds when it plays outside of a festival, and justifiably so."

[therewillbeblus]

At least Joker: Folie à Deux used its numbers creatively towards a clever thesis, just not one that audiences wanted. Emilia Pérez' numbers are bizarre and feel off, dissociated from any clear rationale to exist

[thirtyframesasecond]

Well, this is certainly different and Audiard is definitely trying to throw a lot of things into his film. Taking the plot alone as a drama would be interesting enough, but as a musical (and originally as an opera libretto)??? But then I thought maybe Audiard wasn't radical enough. I was expecting it to be as gaudy as a Baz Luhrmann film. It's a strange film as a big awards-winner and think it could do well at the Oscars given the White House changing hands. Does the film quite earn the direction it takes? I'm not sure, but I enjoyed the film on the whole. I think I liked the music, but would have to listen again.

Rare (and good) to see Zoe Saldana in a complex, dramatic role. Is she the most successful actress in history, in pure terms of box office?

[therewillbeblus]

Zoe Saldana is the film's lone saving grace. It's no wonder that the only Oscar this seems in competition for is for her

[ryannichols7]

I haven't seen a non-comic book movie this consistently tranched by people I follow on Letterboxd in some time

[thirtyframesasecond]

Zoe Saldana is the film's lone saving grace. It's no wonder that the only Oscar this seems in competition for is for her

Would she be nommed for Best Actress or Supporting? Mikey Madison has to be nailed on for Actress, surely?

[therewillbeblus]

She's currently the frontrunner for supporting on goldderby

[beamish14]

Well, this is certainly different and Audiard is definitely trying to throw a lot of things into his film. Taking the plot alone as a drama would be interesting enough, but as a musical (and originally as an opera libretto)??? But then I thought maybe Audiard wasn't radical enough. I was expecting it to be as gaudy as a Baz Luhrmann film. It's a strange film as a big awards-winner and think it could do well at the Oscars given the White House changing hands. Does the film quite earn the direction it takes? I'm not sure, but I enjoyed the film on the whole. I think I liked the music, but would have to listen again.

Rare (and good) to see Zoe Saldana in a complex, dramatic role. Is she the most successful actress in history, in pure terms of box office?

I honestly enjoyed the music and all of the performances quite a bit. Like Roma, the film does an interesting job at handling the racism that exists within Latin American countries, and how light-hued people have opportunities that simply aren’t afforded to others.

[jbeall]

Zoe Saldana is the film's lone saving grace. It's no wonder that the only Oscar this seems in competition for is for her

I thought Karla Sofía Gascón was terrific in this. Wouldn't be surprised if she got an Oscar nom.

Overall, I quite liked the film, though the pace in the second half felt a little breakneck to me.

[thirtyframesasecond]

Zoe Saldana is the film's lone saving grace. It's no wonder that the only Oscar this seems in competition for is for her

I thought Karla Sofía Gascón was terrific in this. Wouldn't be surprised if she got an Oscar nom.

Overall, I quite liked the film, though the pace in the second half felt a little breakneck to me.

KSG is second favourite for Actress - it's got to be Madison's Oscar as Anora partly succeeds due to her performance and energy. EP is more of an ensemble film.

[therewillbeblus]

I don't think this is going to drum up enough energy to be in serious competition for much, but yes, Karla Sofía Gascón will get a nomination

[The Curious Sofa]

Audiard has never been shy about leaning into genre conventions that require a healthy suspension of disbelief, and this is the film where he takes it the furthest. You either go along with it or you don't, but whatever the film's flaws, I can't say that I was bored. I like the songs, but then I've always been a fan of Camille, Karla Sofía Gascón is excellent, but it's really down to Zoe Saldaña that more of this works than doesn't, and she would be the one most deserving of awards recognition.

[Matt]

Zoe Saldana is the film's lone saving grace. It's no wonder that the only Oscar this seems in competition for is for her

Would she be nommed for Best Actress or Supporting?

I'm glad Saldaña is getting well-deserved recognition, but it really is hilariously blatant category fraud for her to be submitted for awards as supporting actress. There's maybe 10 minutes out of 130 that she's not onscreen.

Anyway, this is a small step forward for Audiard, who's seemed lost in the weeds for the last 10 years. Like Tarantino, he's torn between playing with genre and trying to make social commentary. Too much of one and you get "disposable" (which is not to say "bad") films like The Beat That My Heart Skipped and Death Proof. Too much of the other and you get... Dheepan and Inglourious Basterds. I'd love to take a pair of scissors to this and cut out two or three of the musical numbers ("La vaginoplastia" and "Mi camino" for sure), cut out Adriana Paz's character entirely (with apologies to her, because she did a lot with nothing), trim Selena Gomez's role down to a glorified cameo, and concentrate on the relationship between Rita and Emilia. But it's always Audiard's impulse to go bigger. When it works, it's great: the stomp on the tearjerker accelerator in the third act of Rust and Bone is one exquisite example. When it stalls, it's a massive disappointment. This film, like Un prophet, is somewhere in the middle. Great moments, awful moments, landing somewhere in the middle with a "well, that was kinda neat" plop. Give Zoe all the statuettes and let's move on to the next one.

thirtyframesasecond mentioned Baz Luhrmann above, and I think that's the one thing this movie needed more of: glitz. All of the musical numbers seemed cramped and airless. Too small a budget or too small an imagination.

And to Never Cursed's point in the top post, yeah, it's painfully clear this was shot almost entirely on a soundstage outside Paris. I love studio-bound musicals as much as the next MGM classics fan, but when you're trying to make three or four socio-political statements that all depend on specificity and authenticity? You need a little bit more than just some artfully scuffed woodwork on the set.

[The Curious Sofa]

It is true that the attempt at social commentary sits increasingly uneasily with Audiard's preoccupation with genre. My favorite of his films is still Read My Lips, a romantic thriller built around a Hitchcockian high concept that mostly avoids social commentary. In the way it uses a thriller plot to serve as a character study of a complicated female protagonist, it is also somewhat reminiscent of Klute, and Emanuelle Devos gives one of my all-time favorite performances in the lead.

And his directorial debut, See How They Fall, should be better known. It's a grimy crime movie about low-level grifters that puts the "homo" in this Scorsese-like homosocial world without ever making it an issue.

[Matt]

Read My Lips is also my favorite Audiard. Between this and Kings and Queen, Devos launched herself into my favorite actresses list. It's a shame she seems to be content with making fairly undistinguished films these days.

[Monterey Jack]

This ranks with Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and Don't Look Up as one of the worst -- and most baffling -- movies within the last fifteen years to gain serious awards-season traction. The music sucks, the acting is poor (especially a gravely-miscast Selena Gomez), the depictions of Mexico downright cartoonish (literally the first image is of a a starry sky melting into a stereotypical mariachi band! This from a French filmmaker. I'm surprised they weren't going, "Ai-yi-yi...!"), the messaging about the trans experience seriously and queasily intermixed with the title character's criminal past (which we never actually witness)...the movie is an unintentionally funny mess.

[Finch]

Since Read My Lips was mentioned above (I've not seen it but now I'm curious!), I hope nobody minds the brief digression from Emilia Perez to say that Read My Lips is getting a late March release in France and with English subs on the Blu ray. However, Audiard was in the CC closet recently so he could have done an interview for Read My Lips for an April or May release.