Emilia Pérez

"Emilia Pérez is a film that has sparked controversy for various reasons. Among them: being a production set in Mexico but written and directed by the French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, with actresses who speak Spanish but are not Mexican (Spanish actress Karla Sofia Gascón and Americans Zoë Saldaña and Selena Gomez, with particular criticism directed at the latter), and most importantly, superficially addressing issues such as the trans experience and the crisis of the disappeared in Mexico, both central to its plot. The film tells the story of a trans drug trafficker, initially known as "El Manitas" (Gascón), who kidnaps a lawyer (Saldaña) to help her with a singular purpose: to fake her death and transition to start anew. Years later, now as Emilia Pérez, she returns to Mexico to try to be near her children and ex (Gomez), while also becoming an activist for the disappeared victims of the drug cartel. The film has its positive aspects, such as the cinematography and Saldaña's performance, but it's important to note its shallow approach to the social context, which it instrumentalizes and trivializes to tell a redemption story that, in strictly dramatic terms, is not well developed. It is worth watching and reflecting on it, on European representation models of other countries' realities, and on how it perpetuates a binary exoticism both towards Latin America and the trans community."

"Jacques Audiard has never been a filmmaker to play it safe. But the director of A Prophet (2009), which won the Grand Prix, Rust and Bone (2012), and the Palme d’Or-winning Dheepan (2015), has truly outdone himself with Emilia Pérez, a musical thriller starring Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, and Karla Sofía Gascón about second chances, gender reassignment, and the brutal violence of Mexican drug cartels. Read the full article from our special coverage of Cannes 2024."