Emilia Perez: A Bold, But Uneven, Descent into the Underworld

This is a crime world movie but also a song and dance movie, a really weird combination now showing on Netflix..

This French film is directed by Jacques Audiard and stars Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofia Gascon and takes place mostly in Mexico.

Courtesy Netflix

Rita is a prosecutor in Mexico and is frustrated with the legal system because all the criminals seem to get away with it. She is offered an opportunity to help a crime boss fake his death and transition as a woman so she can live her authentic self.

We follow Rita as she gets involved in this underground world and tries to help this criminal. This criminal boss, Emilia tries to be a better person for a time but ultimately her fundamental nature catches up with her. The truth does come out as it generally does. I feel like honesty among her family would have helped.

The best thing I can say about this movie is that it is very different. I can appreciate trying something different. The acting performances were impressive. Sometimes the song and dance numbers seemed a bit out of place but on the other hand it also seemed like they helped convey the emotion of the moment which is something music is really good for.

There is a bit early on where Rita goes to different transgender clinics and learns about the process and all the different names for different procedures. I thought that part was fun.

The ending is somewhat disturbing. It was really the only ending though. I did appreciate that Emelia learned a bit about the consequences of her actions from her previous life.

I can't say I love this movie but it had a lot of good elements. This seems to be a very controversial movie but is on the short list to be nominated as best international film for the Academy Awards. So a lot of people liked it better than I did. The fact that it's getting a lot of awards attention is the main reason that I watched it.

I give this 3 out of 5 stars.