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What is Emilia Perez about? Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana’s new Netflix movie explained

Posted on by Larry
What is Emilia Perez about? Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana’s new Netflix movie explained

If you are someone who thinks Netflix doesn’t have enough bombastic musicals to stream, then you’re in luck. Emilia Perez hits the platform today… and boy, are you up for a ride?

There have been a number of big titles picked up on the festival circuit this year, from the Donald Trump biopic The student to the religion-fueled horror of Hugh Grant Heretic.

But you probably didn’t see Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez coming. Debut in Cannes, the new movie is an odyssey towards a complex gender transition, complete with its own musical soundtrack.

Now it’s on your Netflix homepage. What is Emilia Perez actually about – and should you watch it at all?

Emilia Perez’s plot is complicated

In the most concise nutshell possible, Emilia Perez follows the transition from Mexican drug lord Manita to Emilia Perez, with the help of lawyer Rita.

However, there is much more going on here. Rita is an uptight and overlooked lawyer whose boss has just won a major national case thanks to her hard work. She receives a mysterious phone call from someone who sees this play happening, and before she knows it, she is kidnapped.

The perpetrator? Manitas, who cornered Rita to help him with the transition. It’s not that simple: he actually has to fake his own death because he has too many bounties on his head. His young family is also forced to believe that he is dead, which means Emilia Perez begins a new, free life.

Without spoiling too much, that’s basically what happens… through songs. When Emilia and Rita meet again a few years later, she is a benefactor in the community and also filthy rich.

Emilia has another job ahead of her. This time, the plan is for her family to return to Emilia’s care, under the guise of Manitas’ long-lost cousin. Bonkers, yes. But it happens, with serious consequences.

In the midst of this there are more kidnappings, severed fingers, a cheating scandal, one lot of missing people murdered by drug cartels, and a b-plot for lesbian lovers. And the kitchen sink, as the saying goes.

It’s also worth noting that the film is in Spanish, with some English and French thrown in for good measure.

Who’s in it?

Karla Sofia Gascón leads the charge as Manitas/Emilia, accompanied by Zoe Saldaña as Rita and Selena Gomez as Manitas’ wife, Jessi.

Selena Gomez in Emilia PerezNetflix

The full cast list looks something like this:

  • Zoë Saldaña as Rita Mora Castro
  • Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia Pérez/Juan “Manitas” Del Monte
  • Selena Gomez as Jessi Del Monte
  • Adriana Paz as Epifanía Flores
  • Mark Ivanir as Dr. Wasserman
  • Édgar Ramírez as Gustavo Brun
  • James Gerard as Simon
  • Eduardo Aladro as Berlinger
  • Daniel Velasco-Acosta as Edgar

Shiraz Tzarfati, Agathe Bokja, Lucas Varoclier, Marie-Elisabeth Robert, Eric Geynes, Anabel Lopez, Line Phé, Cyrus Khodaveisi, Yohan Levy and Jonas Paz-Benavide make up the supporting cast.

If rumors are to be believed, Gascón could be the first openly trans woman to ever be nominated for an Academy Award.

“This simply wouldn’t have been the same if you had two different actors, an actor and an actress, a trans actor with a cis actress or cis actor,” she says. told NPR. “This was an opportunity and I pushed for it because this was something that had never been done before… and this was perfectly constructed.”

Gomez said on BBC Radio 1 that she was “the most nervous I have ever been for an audition,” adding: “I knew I had to embody this other person. It all had to come from her. I couldn’t be the pop star, as lame as that sounds.”

Is it a true story?

It is not surprising that No. According to Audiard, the French novel Écoute inspired half of his script.

Netflix

During a conversation with Guillermo del Toro, he explained: “I have a friend, Boris Razon, who is a novelist. I’ve read his novels. I read one, it’s called Écoute, and about halfway through the book the main character, (who) is a lawyer, meets a gang leader who asks him to help him transition and change his gender.

“I turn the pages and then the author doesn’t follow. I (was) very surprised. I called him the next day (to ask), “Boris, do you have any plans for the character in the novel?” And Boris says, “No, no, that’s it.” So I stole the idea. I started running with it.”

Audiard later turned it into a musical and added this idea during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There is very little contemporary operatic repertoire, and I tried to fill that by making Emilia.”

Is the Netflix movie worth watching?

Emilia Perez is hard to describe – so expect a difficult watch. It will be something you remember, even if you don’t necessarily like it.

Karla Sofia Gascon and Zoë Saldana in Emilia PerezNetflix

As I have already touched on, there is So A lot happens in the space of two hours, and it’s probably because of this that the plot can be incredibly thin. There are 16 musical tracks that try to weave all these different threads together, making the overall picture complicated and difficult to follow.

If I’m being completely honest, these musical numbers are not amazing or. In a similar way to an episode of Glee bursting into song mid-sentence, they don’t do much to further what we do understand.

Gascón is amazing at this, though. It is clear that this is the role of a lifetime for her, and she seizes the opportunity with both hands. Saldaña and Gomez also meet her where necessary, even if they pale in comparison (it’s just really hard not to).

To some, Manitas’ transition could be offensive. Look at what Emilia Perez associates with being your true self: crime, death, implosion, destruction, and just overall negativity. Is that the idea we want to project in the mainstream media? No. Is the musical logical enough to work that out? Probably not.

Emilia Perez is now streaming on Netflix. Look for more information stream new movies this month, in addition to the best movies of the year so far.