19/05/2024 - CANNES 2024: Jacques Audiard masterfully pulls off his incredible gamble on a musical comedy set in the Latino drug world, with a film that warmly embraces the freedom to change

Karla Sofía Gastón in Emilia Perez

“Let’s love women, let’s forgive men.” Jacques Audiard has opted to effect his latest cinematic metamorphosis – this time getting stuck into a musical comedy, an extremely risky genre – by approaching it from a place of moral judgement, rather than setting it in the courtrooms, plagued by the potential corruption of those in power and the spectre of unpunished crimes. Add to that a story revolving around a powerful Latino drug dealer with a profound desire to change sex (and his entire life), and one gets a sense of how difficult it is to pull off on paper, with a good chance of the project careening down the stairs with no handrail to grab onto. And yet, he’s hit the jackpot. With the miraculous Emilia Perez [+see also:
trailer
film profile], unveiled in competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, the French director (who previously won the Palme d’Or in 2015 for Dheepan [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Jacques Audiard
film profile]) has found the right approach to a captivating work.

“Are you scared? There’s no need to be.” When lawyer Rita (the pitch-perfect Zoé Saldaña) – kidnapped off the street and shipped out of Mexico overnight to a collection of pick-up trucks full of men who are armed to the teeth – finds herself face to face with Manitas del Monte, the boss of the cartel dominating the synthetic drug market, the young woman is not overly at ease. But he makes a totally unexpected revelation to her (“I want to be a woman”), tasking her with a secret mission (and an extremely well paid one at that): to find the world’s best and most discreet surgeon, and to orchestrate his disappearance under his first identity. The ambitious Rita (“How long have I spent hanging my head, undervaluing my talent, licking others’ boots”) agrees, but she is far from suspecting that the story will have only just begun (“There’s no going back now, for you or for me”) when Manitas (who has a wife – played by Selena Gomez – and two young children) becomes Emilia Perez (the fantastic Karla Sofía Gastón)…

To this Ferris wheel sweeping away all traces of the past while simultaneously bringing it back to the surface (the string of atrocities committed by the drug dealers, particularly the enforced disappearances), where love is seen as an epiphany, Jacques Audiard joyfully adds a passionate score courtesy of Camille and Clément Ducol. The song lyrics are obviously not there by chance and tell us a lot about the intentions of the filmmaker (“Changing your body means changing society; changing society means changing people’s mindset”), who makes every effort (and he has plenty of it in reserve) to stage some highly fluid choreography, but also to weave the web of this storyline (a screenplay written with Thomas Bidegain) that toys with secrets, truth and happiness. The overall result inevitably possesses a manufactured side, but in the best sense of the word, and this is a film that’s geared towards delighting the viewer.

Emilia Perez was produced by Why Not Productions and Page 114 together with Saint Laurent Productions, France 2 Cinéma and Pathé Films. It is being sold overseas by The Veterans.

(Translated from French)

Photogallery 19/05/2024: Cannes 2024 - Emilia Perez

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Jacques Audiard, Zoe Saldana, Édgar Ramírez, Selena Gomez, Karla Sofía Gascón, Adriana Paz
© 2024 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it