Can a movie perfectly capture our cultural moment, and win every Oscar at the same time?
History would say no, but that hasn’t stopped directors from trying. Crash is probably the most famous example of the “Oscar Bait” trend, capitalizing on Bush-era prejudices and fears to create an ensemble piece about shared humanity and kindness. The result, especially looking back, is … not perfect. While Terrence Howard and Matt Dillon give stand-out performances and the film overall looks great, the writing is preachy and approaches difficult topics with all the delicacy of a car crash (see what I did there). Crash’s creator Paul Haggis himself described Crash in his interview with The Guardian as “…the social experiment that I wanted, so I think it’s a really good social experiment. Is it a great film? I don’t know.”
Now in 2024, we have a similar idea repeated in Emilia Pérez: a musical drama about a drug cartel leader who wishes to transition. As expected, the film addresses the topic of gender, but also cartel violence and the number of missing people in Mexico City. And, like Crash, these topics aren’t exactly handled well. On top of that though, the whole thing is just kind of a horrible hard-to-watch mess.
The Music
I want to start here because this is actually my area of expertise. I’m a classically trained mezzo soprano and I’ve played numerous operatic roles throughout my college music degree. I mention this only because director Jacques Audiard absolutely insists that Emilia Pérez is not a musical, but a modern opera. In his interview with Variety, he said “Emilia‘s DNA is really opera — it’s a movie set like an opera.” He even went as far as to describe the film’s script as libretto. Please excuse me while I hurl myself into the sea.
To be clear, Emilia Pérez is not an opera. It barely feels like a musical at times, as its songs range from half-baked to borderline unlistenable. I can see what he was aiming for, as opera is traditionally sung-through (with little to no dialogue) and the movie has A LOT of singing, but it certainly misses the mark to say the least. I’d wager the conversations that are eye-rollingly sung instead of spoken were a poor attempt at recitative. I watched a lot of these conversations squinting at the screen with suspicion and asking out-loud “Are they singing right now, or just mumbling?”
It’s not hard to see why it’s bad when Audiard describes the film’s music-writing process. In his interview with The New York Times, he explained “We had to learn together in a very empirical manner. They would write lyrics based on the dialogue. We’d listen to demos together. Many songs they wrote wound up in the garbage. We really had to learn by doing.”
You don’t have to be a musician to understand why this music doesn’t work, you can hear it. La Vaginoplastia has already gone viral for very obvious reasons, but the other songs aren’t better. Often, the composers just switch gears mid-song, throwing out any established melody and just having the performer switch to rap (whether they can do it effectively or not). While some songs (particularly Aqui Estoy and Las Damas que Pasan) are okay, that isn’t going to cut it for a film that is over 50% song.
The Look
I’ll try to be a bit nicer here because this film looks pretty great. Audiard takes a bombastic, almost Baz Luhrmann-esque approach to Mexico City, with colorful lights, street vendors, and mariachi bands. The cinematography is for the most part excellent, and beautiful shots of the tight choreography as well as intimate quiet moments make up large portions of this film’s runtime.
That being said, creating this colorful atmosphere then telling the audience this is a serious grounded story makes the film feel like it’s in a liminal space. Audiard spoke frequently in interviews about the fact that this movie was not shot on location, but rather on a soundstage outside of Paris. In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said “You see, I had all these images in my head, and these images weren’t going to fit on the streets of Mexico, in the interiors of Mexico. I needed a bigger tool of stylization.” The issue with his vision is that combining this dream-like atmosphere with this story meant to be taken with the utmost seriousness places the film’s vibe somewhere between a bad Netflix original movie and Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. It’s bad, but not bad enough to be fun.
The Story
Arguably the worst part, this movie’s story is an absolute mess. While I understand they were trying to emulate the style of a telenovela with numerous twists and turns, it’s too much too fast. Emilia’s transition is moved on from very quickly, and frankly, in the grand scope of the story, it’s not all that important. The movie focuses much more heavily on her character’s choices and how she intends to live now that she is no longer a cartel leader. Because of this, I cannot help but wonder: why make her character transition if it doesn’t matter that much to the story?
I won’t mince words, the performances are bad. It goes back to this weird liminal space the movie lives in, between reality and a colorful bombastic world. As a result, no one acts or talks like a real person. I haven’t seen Karla Sofía Gascón in any other television or movies, but I know that both Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez are very competent talented actresses. I think this script just isn’t doing anyone justice, and every character is stuck in a wooden stereotype of what could be a more fleshed-out character with more time and better dialogue.
In Short
Emilia Pérez and Crash are both bad in the same way: they both fail to meet this current cultural zeitgeist in a way that’s nuanced, authentic, and importantly competent as a good piece of cinema. The awards response to Emilia Pérez has been very positive thus far, with it beating out powerhouses like Wicked and The Substance for Best Musical/Comedy at the Golden Globes. Even still, I believe that like Crash, we will look at this film 20 years from now with a reaction somewhere between “Eh, it’s okay I guess” and “Oh my god how did I ever watch that?” For me, it will definitely be the latter. Good riddance.