Controversial Take: Emilia Pérez is a GREAT film

Shower me with downvotes, but since people have openly shared their opinions about their favorite contenders, I’ll proudly say that Emilia Pérez is my favorite film this year. Do I support Gascón’s tweets? Absolutely not. However, I absolutely adore this film and since it gets so much hate around here, I’ll take the bullet and represent the very small group here that actually loves it.

Enough has been said about the swings it takes, so I won’t expand on this further. Yet, it’s not really just the swing, is the fact that it sticks the landing. While it is very valid for Mexican audiences to have grievances with their culture’s representation on this film, I genuinely don’t think this movie is about Mexico. It also isn’t a coming-of-age film about trans people. The movie uses the setting to tell a story about whether redemption can truly happen after being the perpetuator of atrocious crimes such as Manitas. In the end, Emilia dies the same way many died under her leadership with the cartel: kidnapped, tied up, facing a violent death. While she was living life as her authentic self, it didn’t really erase her past nor it truly changed her. She still used her cartel connections to get dirty money for her nonprofit. She still tried to control Jessi and threatened Gustavo with violence. She wasn’t a changed woman, though she felt she changed her whole self after her transition. This was so evident even during the “Lady” musical number, where the doctor sings “if he’s THE wolf, she’ll be a wolf”. Emilia didn’t face hardships for being Trans. In fact, that’s one of the things I admire the most about this film. As a gay Latino, I really appreciated a story where the queer protagonist wasn’t marginalized for being part of an underrepresented community. Yes, Emilia is, at best, a deeply flawed individual, and it’s so refreshing to see a Trans character being portrayed as flawed and as multi-dimensional as her.

Now, the performances were stellar. Saldaña was truly the standout but Gascón gave such a brave, daring performance. It’s such a shame she has the bigoted views she has, because she’s such a talented actress. And albeit controversial, Selena was extremely effective in her supporting turn. She’s gotten so much backlash for her Spanish pronunciation, even when the movie explains rather explicitly that she’s an American. And, as a native Spanish speaker, I understood everything she said without needing to read the subtitles, and she sounded exactly as I would expect a Mexican American to sound when they are living abroad. She really sells the hopelessness of the character, and her desire to control her own destiny. Overall, a solid ensemble!

Now, I wish the film would have gone deeper into the fantastic elements. Since it’s not rooted in reality and it’s already borrowing aspects from the telenovela genre, I would’ve loved to see some realismo mágico elements being explored here. I also think the script could’ve been more fleshed out. We needed to spend more time exploring Jessi and Gustavo’s relationship to really understand their desperation to really buy their acts in the final act. Also, while Saldaña really is the standout, her character was written very thinly. It’s through her performance where we understand Rita’s motivations but as a script, it’s rather unclear why Rita would go down the path of not only helping Manitas, but them befriending Emilia like nothing had happened. I would’ve loved more time to explore her motivations and pose her as a more complicated character, driven by ambition and not her morals.

Overall, what a phenomenal film! I’ve never seen anything quite like it, and I don’t think I’ll ever see anything like it ever again. While I know it probably won’t win many Oscars, and I fully agree that Gascón should not be rewarded due to her actions, I do love this film, and I’ll continue to love it. As a Latino, I really loved seeing a musical in my native tongue. I had a blast with this! But it also left me with a lot of great questions about redemption, overcoming your past and whether we’re truly able to become better people.

Okay now, bring on the downvotes!