Emilia Perez (2024)

Director and Writer: Jacques Audiard

Starring: Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz

Before I went to see Emilia Perez I read the reviews.

(My partner: Why did you do that?

Me: You know how you say sometimes you’re not sure what you’ve been to see until you’ve read my blog. I just like to do the prep beforehand, rather than retrospectively.)

The reviews were all glowing. They talked about the film being gender and genre-twisting. They were filled with discussion of the image and themes, but the details around plot were sketchy. I had watched two of the female stars, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez, step around the details of the film on a chat show.

So, despite my diligent preparation, I was still unsure of what I was going to see. I had some buzz words, but no real content. I was going to see a French production of a Spanish language trans-themed, crime musical. I knew it won the Jury Prize at the Palm d’Or and its female ensemble won the Best Actress award. (That’s right the four female main players shared the prize).

I was ready to be disorientated. And that was the right frame of mind to approach the film and to watch the story that unfolded. I’m going to stick with the tradition of the other reviewers and not say too much about plot. The story is as sprawling as the high shots of Mexico City. It starts in one place and spreads all over tackling identity, social, political and criminal justice. Everything intersects. Nobody lives a single issue life.

It is a musical. As early as 1917, Jerome Kern wrote that:

“Musical numbers should carry on the action of the play and should be representative of the personalities and characters who sing them.”

So, whilst breaking into song takes the audience out of the external, physical drama, it highlights an internal, emotional drama. (Although it can just be fun. “Penis to vagina” warbles a Bangkok doctor). The musical takes a complex story and adds narration and character insights. Jessi (Selena Gomez) singing intoxicated in a karaoke bar tells us about her lack of control, just as Rita’s (Zoe Saldana) tight rap of El Mal as she dances on tables, shows us a frustration that her professional exterior cannot (and incidentally was my favourite part of the film).

But what struck me early on was the colour palette on the screen. In particular the use of city street lights turning everything blue. Or fluorescent strip lighting making everything washed out and clinical. Or car highlights in dark roads pointing outwards to give a green tinge to a desert landscape and gangster faces. Very few scenes appear in daylight.

The lighting in Emelia Perez rarely comes from a natural source. It is rarely from the sun above. It is often at an awkward angle to its subject, from the front of a car, a laptop screen, a surgeon’s close-up beams, from multiple spotlights or fairy lights in a bar. It leaves the characters and the settings looking uncanny, strange.

As the music underscores characters, the lighting highlights the tension of setting and theme.

There is one moment where the sun comes through a window as Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) recovers from her surgery. She uses a mirror to reflect back her new identity. She smiles. The effect is a sense of calm, of the natural being restored.

The harshness of the lighting in Emilia Perez, the way faces change in different contexts is fundamental to a film where the theme is transition and change. Contexts matter. Acceptance comes in different shades. But a trans identity is always being investigated, looked at through different colours and lenses.

The film has a limited theatre release and will be available on Netflix shortly. I’m glad I got to see it on a large screen. I’m glad I got to be baffled and shaken by the onslaught of plot, movement, sound and lighting. It is bold, brassy and brave.

But don’t expect to fall in love. This film is not interested in likeable characters and neat solutions. There cannot be a cosy ending, flooded in sunlight.