Some Netflix movies are there to hum in the background as you do whatever task is in front of you. Emilia Perez is NOT one of those Netflix films. As you’re about to pick up your phone, something happens, shaking it out of your hand so you put it back down and pay attention. This movie gets an A for effort for sure. Is that the overall grade for this movie? Well…
For all the antics this movie gets into, the story is pretty straightforward. A solid but underappreciated lawyer named Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana) has just won her latest case but received zero credit for it. However, a certain Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascon), your friendly neighborhood cartel boss, can see through the BS, and offers Rita a deal. Rita can help fabricate Juan’s death to protect his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and his kids so Juan can get a sex change operation in exchange for incredible wealth. Or, well, now that Rita knows, it’s not really much of a choice she has is it?
By about minute 30, I just gave into all the hard work Emilia Perez was putting on screen. Director Jacques Audiard pulls everything out of his bag to direct the hell out of this movie, and the cast is onboard and willing to go where he wants them to. We start with an international legal drama? That’s not capturing enough people, though, so…let’s add in some music, I mean, we have Selena Gomez right, and Zoe Saldana is pretty good too! Still not enough? Alright, how ’bout an LGBTQ coming out story. That’s awesome, we’ve got to have something for everyone by now right? Still NO?!?! Ok, fine, fine, we need more sizzle for the boys…how about a drug cartel crime thriller as well? And you know what? For good measure, we’ll throw in a little sex, and a little romance too! About every 15-20 minutes, Emilia Perez switches gears into one of these many roads it goes down, eventually coming back to the main one (the LGBTQ/crime thriller) for a little bit before it switches again. If you’re watching at home, you’ll be thrashed about on your couch with all the goings on, more and more fascinated to see where Emilia Perez was going to go and how it was going to get there.
The final result lands mostly positively. That main story is wonderfully strong and complex, thanks to the great performances of Zoe Saldana and incredible newcomer Karla Sofia Gascon, giving us two fascinating independent female characters on their own paths that sometimes cross. Both are on similar paths of putting up facades while there’s turbulence going on underneath, but in wholly opposite situations with different motivations, equally compelling. As for poor Selena, she gets the third wheel treatment, trapped in the least interesting tale with the least interesting character, though she gives it her all (she’s pretty good in spite of everything!). The movie probably works better if she’s not in it, taking those sequences and adding more layering to our 2 stronger leads. The musical parts of Emilia Perez look great, but leave no real lasting impression, and seem to be there to keep the at home streamers awake if they drift to sleep late at night watching the movie.
So Emilia Perez’s whole isn’t as great as the sum of its parts. Big deal: many movies are like this, and have ZERO good parts. That’s 100% NOT true of Jacques Audiard’s Netflix awards contender, which boasts some truly great parts buoyed down by a pretty mediocre sideplot or two. Just know, if you put this on in hopes to quietly fall asleep or do some light chores, Audiard, Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofa Gascon, and Selena Gomez will keep reminding you they really put a lot of time and effort into this one, so you should at least give it a chance too. Now go to your room and think about what you just did! 😉