It might surprise you that there’s a movie musical generating more awards buzz than Wicked this year. Emilia Pérez quietly debuted on Netflix last November, making a huge impact at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize and Best Actress for an ensemble cast. Directed by Jacques Audiard, the film garnered 10 Golden Globe nominations, the most for any film this year, including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy. It walked away with four awards and led this week’s Oscar nominations with 13 – the second-most in history, tying with Gone with the Wind, Forrest Gump, and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Nominations include Best Picture, Best Director for Audiard, Best Actress for Karla Sofía Gascón, Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña, and Best Original Song for two of its musical numbers.
But the real question is: Is Emilia Pérez any good?
As with many films exploring the dark sides of marginalized communities, critics and awards bodies have hailed the film as a brave exploration of trans identity and Mexico’s brutal drug war. Glowing reviews have applauded Audiard’s so-called avant-garde approach, portraying underrepresented characters and tackling provocative themes through a bold Spanish-language musical. However, the general public and many queer critics are far less enthusiastic. Some have raised serious concerns about the film’s handling of trans identity, while others are perplexed by its premise.
Harron Walker from The Cut criticized Emilia Pérez for using trans identity as a "redemptive" tool for its criminal protagonist. An article in Autostraddle called it the "most unique cis nonsense you’ll ever see." Even LGBTQ organization GLAAD condemned the film for its poor portrayal of trans representation.
Yet, given Hollywood’s history of celebrating stories about people on the margins without ever truly challenging harmful stereotypes, Emilia Pérez’s Oscar presence isn’t exactly a surprise. Could it be this year’s Crash?
What Is Emilia Pérez?
Adapted from Audiard’s opera libretto and based on the 2019 Boris Razon novel Écoute, Emilia Pérez is a rock musical about three Mexican women whose lives are turned upside down when one of them, Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón), decides to transition. The story starts with Rita (Zoe Saldaña), a Dominican defense lawyer disillusioned by Mexico’s corrupt legal system. After getting a high-profile criminal off the hook for murdering his wife, Rita is kidnapped by Emilia (then known as “Manitas”), who seeks her help to escape a cartel in exchange for a substantial amount of money.
The escape plan? Transitioning. It’s a desire Emilia has harbored since childhood, but in a baffling twist, the procedure is used as a way to avoid accountability for her past crimes. Rita reluctantly agrees, arranging for Emilia to undergo multiple gender-affirming surgeries all at once (an unrealistic medical shortcut). Rita also helps relocate Emilia’s wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez), and their two sons. Years later, when Emilia wants to reunite with her family, she has Rita bring them back to Mexico City under the guise of being the children’s “aunt,” while Emilia recruits Rita to start a nonprofit dedicated to identifying cartel victims' bodies and notifying their families.
And if that wasn’t enough, the plot only becomes more chaotic, violent, and tragic due to Emilia’s selfish and reckless behavior. Instead of focusing on Emilia’s complex psyche and navigating her identity, the film leans on spectacle and melodrama.
A “Progressive” Movie With Troubling Tropes
Despite Gascón’s best efforts to bring some nuance to her character, Emilia is portrayed as a ridiculous and, at times, loathsome figure. Audiard uses her trans identity as a shield for her behavior instead of treating her as a fully realized human being. The film’s half-hearted attempts to make Emilia sympathetic fall flat, overshadowed by the chaos she causes throughout the story.
As critic Juan Barquin pointed out in Little White Lies, the film’s attempt to adapt a chapter that originally focused on a cartel leader transitioning solely as a means of escaping her past doesn’t go far enough to address the negative aspects of trans identity within the narrative. Even though Audiard tries to give Emilia a backstory of lifelong gender dysphoria, her identity is still presented as little more than a disguise.
The film’s portrayal of trans identity focuses almost exclusively on the “external change of medical transition” and limits its portrayal to just two genders—male and female. One of the most awkward moments comes in a musical sequence called “La vaginoplastia,” where a plastic surgeon sings, “Man to woman, penis to vagina!” This clumsy presentation further exacerbates the film’s lack of understanding of trans experiences.
But the issues don’t stop there. The depiction of Mexican culture in Emilia Pérez feels equally lazy and regressive. Mexico is presented as a violent, tragic backdrop, with character identities reduced to stereotypes—like smelling of tequila or guacamole. The film’s language also falls short, with criticisms aimed at Selena Gomez’s performance, with one critic noting, “She sounds like she doesn’t understand what she’s saying.”
In terms of the film’s depiction of the Mexican drug trade, Emilia Pérez doesn’t offer any new insights. Instead, it indulges in melodramatic violence, which only serves to reinforce worn-out stereotypes about the drug trade. The film’s climax, a shootout, feels inevitable from the start.
Emilia Pérez: The Most Stereotypical Oscar Movie
If history is any guide, Emilia Pérez is poised to be a serious contender at the Oscars. Its success at the Golden Globes makes it likely to win at least a few Academy Awards, as the Oscars have a long history of celebrating films that, while tackling "important issues," fail to challenge systemic issues in any meaningful way.
Similar films in this category often focus on marginalized people in struggle, giving audiences the illusion of enlightenment while rarely addressing the larger issues at hand. Films like Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and Green Book (2019) have won Oscars despite being criticized for their simplistic, often problematic representations of race and social justice. Emilia Pérez may be just another in a long line of movies that get praised for their surface-level political messages without genuinely engaging with the complexities they portray.
Much like Crash (2005), which won Best Picture despite its muddled portrayal of race relations, Emilia Pérez seems to oversimplify its narrative about trans and Latino/Latina identity. In the end, it offers more confusion than clarity, and a lot of spectacle, but little compassion.
As Hollywood continues to celebrate movies that merely tick boxes for diversity while avoiding true, meaningful engagement with complex issues, Emilia Pérez may just emerge as the ideal Best Picture winner: tragic, brave, and ultimately out of touch. Will the Academy be swayed by its awards momentum, or will it critically engage with the film’s troubling approach? Only time will tell.