With predictions in hand, this year’s pre-Oscar race has been filled with surprises. The biggest surprise (or perhaps not, considering how well it did at Cannes and the Golden Globes) was the 13 Oscar nominations for Emilia Pérez (2024).
A film about Mexico, in Español, with trans representation, and a musical?! This literally sounded like my dream movie, and yet, I had already heard the worst things about it, especially from my Latin and queer friends.
Right off the bat, the intro song worked effectively — it sparked curiosity. The lighting was exquisite, and the sound mix was experimental but pleasant in a weird blend of alt-pop and hip-hop. Certainly giving Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) vibes — I instantly understood why European eyes and ears fell for it.
We follow Rita (Zoe Saldaña), a disillusioned defence attorney who is tired of the system’s corruption and wants to work for something she believes in. She finds that with Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón), then known as Juan “Manitas” del Monte, a drug lord who seeks help gender transitioning and starting over.
The musical notes were hitting. However, the lyrics were another thing entirely. Being from Peru, my brain was utterly confused. It sounded … good, kind of, but I understood none of it. This made no sense as the movie is in my mother tongue. As it went on, I realized I would have to turn on the subtitles and pretend this wasn’t set in Latin America. It wasn’t just the accent that was completely off, but the grammar and use of odd phrases that made it unintelligible for a native speaker. The cultural portrayal was lacking in simple things like how the characters carry themselves in how they react and what they do.
Saldaña is arguably the silver lining of this movie, and should’ve been regarded as the film’s lead in the nominations. Placing her in Supporting Actress almost feels like category fraud, as the focus of most shots is usually Rita, which tells viewers that she is, in fact, the protagonist. This movie fails to respect its true lead, resulting in a scattered film that doesn’t know which story to follow. It tackles several plot points superficially that are left unresolved in a bad way. It wanted to explore too much, and it ended up expressing nothing at all.
This is not a good musical either. Musicals will often get a bad reputation because people will condemn singing as unnecessary; in truth, singing is anything but that. The musical narrative is another layer of storytelling, where sounds are used as a progression to the story. Emilia Pérez does the opposite. It’s a redundancy fest of songs that made the movie stall and feel like it was three hours long. Unlike well-done musicals, where a song will move the plot forward, this could’ve had no songs and would’ve said the same thing — which defeats the purpose of a musical.
This movie managed to offend the two minorities it was allegedly representing, with good reason: a cisgender, white, French man — who speaks no Spanish and doesn’t know about gender-affirming surgeries — wanted to direct a film about a trans woman from Mexico and did little investigative work before exploring his fever dream.
Clearly, Jacques Audiard doesn’t even respect the language used in the film as shown on one of his latest statements in which he inaccurately looks down on its origins.
“Spanish is a language of modest countries, of developing countries, of the poor and migrants.”
Aside from some exterior shots, filming was not done in Mexico and was filled with stereotypes. There is only one token Mexican actress in the film and the lead is from Spain, which is just the cherry on top when you consider the impacts of colonialism on Mexico.
Audiard claimed that Mexicans were bashing the movie without having seen it. Well, they’ve seen it now, and it hasn’t just monumentally flopped with LATAM viewers, but the Mexican people fired back with their protest parody: Johanne Sacreblu (2025). Set in France and filmed in Mexico, it tells the story of families Sacreblu and Ratatouille who fight over who has the best bread (the croissant or the baguette) in the country — and if this sounds ridiculous to you, then you understand why Emilia Pérez sucks for us.
Did the producers mean to do this? Unlikely — they’re just ignorant. Alas, ignorance is being rewarded.
