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‘Emilia Pérez’ Review: Leading Lady Karla Sofía Gascón Electrifies in Jacques Audiard’s Mexican Redemption Musical
Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez co-star in Jacques Audiard's exhilarating 'Emilia Pérez,' about a former cartel boss' life-changing transformation.
With a Palme d’Or already to his name and the cojones to tackle his third movie in a culture and language that are not his own (after “Dheepan” and “The Sisters Brothers”), the director of “A Prophet” takes audiences into the macho realm of Mexican cartels, where Manitas del Monte — a fearsome drug lord with a silver grill and voice like gravel — wants out, not because he’s had a crisis of conscience, but because he’s decided to embrace his true self … as a woman. Audiard’s dazzling and instantly divisive film — which stars Zoe Saldaña as the lawyer who helps Manitas transition and Selena Gomez as the mother of their two sons — doesn’t strictly adhere to the codes set by GLAAD and other LGBT advocates, and yet, “Emilia Pérez” emerges as a powerful, unfiltered portrait of someone who challenges several stereotypes at once. But primarily-Spanish-language “Emilia Pérez” isn’t an adaptation so much as a totally different interpretation of that out-there idea: What if you took the poster boy for toxic masculinity and made them a woman — not à la Griselda Blanco (“Cocaine Godmother”), but in such a way that eclipsed the aggressive original persona?
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