Emilia Pérez

Director: Jacques Audiard
Starring: Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofia Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir
Running Time: 132 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

Say what you will about Jacques Audiard's Emilia Pérez, but it's definitely in a category all by itself, at points straddling the lines between drama, musical, comedy, and action thriller. And while it isn't exactly common to see an elaborately choreographed musical number about a drug lord's gender reassignment surgery, Audiard's out of the box approach is easy to embrace, shattering any preconceptions viewers may have going in. 

Adapting his own opera into a unconventional feature, Audiard's technique becomes more about the "how" than "what," pushing the plot in a direction that at times seems impossible to predict. He walks the thinnest of tightropes by mixing disparate genres in a blender to earn a payoff that hits surprisingly hard, thanks largely to the pair of brilliant performances that anchor this ambitious spectacle.

Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña) is an overworked, undervalued defense attorney in Mexico assisting in a prominent murder case when she gets an anonymous phone call requesting her presence for a mysterious meeting. After being offered a life-altering sum of money for her services, she discovers the prospective client is notorious drug cartel kingpin Juan "Manitas" Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascón). Informing Rita of his desire to get out of the business and start a new life as a woman, he tasks her with finding a surgeon to perform the surgery and relocate his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and two children to Switzerland for their safety. 

Upon faking his own death, Juan becomes "Emilia Pérez" and Rita gets paid, assuming her work is done. And it is until she encounters a now unrecognizable Emilia four years later, who has one more important assignment for the lawyer. But it's a big one that could potentially destroy Emilia's cover, putting those she cares most about at risk. As Rita and Emilia professionally joining forces to run a Mexican nonprofit, the former will soon discover the true danger of her client attempting to exert the same level of control in this life as she did in her criminal one.

There's a reversal of expectations since Audiard could have taken the easy road of former enemies uncovering Emilia's identity and returning to extract revenge. What occurs instead is far more complex, as Juan's transformation into Emilia initially goes off without a hitch, extricating her from a violent past to experience this new life as a woman. But once Emilia retains Rita's services again, we suspect  trouble lurks on the horizon. Unfortunately, the danger ends up being Emilia herself, who proves that old habits die hard. 

Jessi and the kids believing Juan is gone won't deter Emilia from reconnecting with her family, even if they have no idea who she really is. Nor will Jessi's volatile relationship with boyfriend Gustavo (Edgar Ramírez), a problem she'll poorly try to handle using her old tactics. Rita knows Emilia's involvement is a terrible idea, but as the two friends start changing lives in the community, we see a charitable, remorseful side of Emilia that suggests she's desperate to make amends for a life of crime. But even as she's immersed in a solid relationship with girlfriend Epifanía (Adriana Paz), the walls around her are crumbling down.

Even with Emilia raising her public profile enough to become a folk hero of sorts, it's still credible that no one in law enforcement or the criminal underworld would recognize her since we have to do a triple take ourselves in identifying her as Juan. And if there's been some debate surrounding who the film's lead actually is, what Gascón pulls off is miraculous either way, charting Emilia's journey from drug boss to flawed saint with a wide range of motivation and regret. 

Gascón excels as both the silently suffering Juan and more extroverted, self-assured Emilia, who's struggling to reconnect with her family. From scene-to-scene the actress manages to swing between charismatic caregiver and domineering monster, making viewers wonder who will win in the end. And yet the film's first half belongs entirely to Saldaña, who earns a showcase for unexplored facets of her talent previously hidden by giant franchise roles. 

The tirelessly loyal Rita is simultaneously inspired and frustrated by Emilia, who's new beginning marks an entirely different start for her as well. And Saldaña puts her trained dance background to good use by impressively carrying the musical numbers, many of which are not only catchy, but advance the story's plot with humorously clever lyrics sprung from spoken conversations. While the Spanish film's subtitled, it's a credit to Saldaña that the translation rarely feels necessary because she sells so much of the story through her voice, mannerisms and body language. Gomez's performance peaks later, but she emerges as a formidable presence as Jessi flies further off the rails when escalating events reach their climax.

Like its title character, the picture itself undergoes a transition when the script abruptly changes course, going down an alternate road that ends up being even more explosive. Throughout, Audiard remains fully committed to the notion that someone can physically change who they are, but trying to erase everything else is much harder. The story doesn't really begin until the title character gets what she wants, realizing the reward of living an authentic life can still come at an extremely high cost.