Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” which was recently nominated for an obscene 13 Academy Awards, is a fascinating movie largely because of how bad it is. Even discounting its myriad thematic issues, the movie is tonally confused, poorly structured and a chore to sit through.
The film follows Rita, a guilt-ridden lawyer played by Zoe Saldaña, who takes on a secretive but wealthy client. That client is eventually revealed to be a drug lord, played by transgender actress Karla Sofía Gascón, who wishes to start a new life by transitioning into a woman.
This plot development, and many others, is communicated through leaden musical numbers with uninspired choreography and appalling songwriting. They’re so inept that they almost become compelling but fall short and just end up dull.
The worst thing about the movie, though, is its treatment of its title character. Emilia Pérez is not really the protagonist of the story — the film’s main emotional arc is centered around Saldaña, not Gascón.
Positive reviews of “Emilia Pérez”— almost uniformly written by established cisgender critics — laud the movie for its allegedly nuanced, sympathetic treatment of capital I “important” subjects like transphobia. I disagree entirely.
To me, “Emilia Pérez” doesn’t evoke genuinely radical or empathetic art as much as it does the surfeit of saccharine dramas about autism or sexual assault or inner-city schools that Hollywood churned out back when Paul Haggis’ “Crash” was considered Oscar-worthy.
When you strip away the layers of terribly executed telenovela and crime drama pastiche that drape unevenly over “Emilia Pérez,” you’re left with a narrative arc that recalls “Rain Man” or Sia’s “Music.”
The latter — which is incidentally the single worst movie I have ever seen in my life — ostensibly centers on an autistic character, but that character really functions as a plot device by which her allistic guardian can learn to become a better person.
Similarly, “Emilia Pérez” is primarily about Rita developing a conscience. It has nothing of value to say about the way that society treats trans people, and ends with Emilia dead and no substantial change to the status quo.
Another trait it shares with Sia’s cinematic atrocity is a total lack of attention to detail when it comes to representing the physical realities of the trait that defines and “others” its title character. Audiard clearly has no idea how the surgeries and hormone treatments that enable a gender transition work. His total disregard for authenticity in a film that’s been marketed on the strength of its representation is careless, lazy and, frankly, insulting.
It’s infuriating that the academy elected to elevate such a retrograde and aesthetically repugnant film with award nominations, especially given the high number of high-profile films by and about trans people released in 2024.
Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow” and Vera Drew’s “The People’s Joker,” for example, both use stylized filmmaking to convey the complexities of the trans experience, succeeding where Audiard’s movie falls flat on its face.
