A Mexican Cartel boss approaches an under appreciated lawyer with an unbelievable demand. Secretly arrange gender reassignment surgery for him, fake their death and relocate his wife and children without anyone knowing. Accept and be rich or decline and die. 

Emelia Perez is an outlandish film. The plot line synopsis above only covers the first 42 minutes of a 132 minute movie and I promise you it goes to stranger places as it progresses. Its niche status is underlined further by the fact that it is also a musical and is predominantly in Spanish. 

The protagonists are all women facing different challenges. Rita (Zoe Saldana) is an exceptional lawyer who does all the hard work for her male boss to take the acclaim. Fed up of representing murderers, unhappy with her single status and with a career permanently trapped under the glass ceiling of the patriarchy she accepts the task presented to her. Manitas/Emilia Perez (Karla Sofia Gascon) is a drug lord whose enterprises have claimed countless lives. But she feels trapped in a male body and unable to be her real self. Becoming a woman would be a dream come true with the bonus of freeing them of a catalogue of crimes. Jessi (Selena Gomez) is Manitas’ wife. Living under the constant threat of death from her husband’s enemies and allies whilst waiting for him to grow tired of her and move on. But the loss of her husband also represents huge upheaval and being much poorer. 

The plot lines also touch on the missing dead of Mexico caused by drug cartels, corruption in government, redemption and include thriller staples such as kidnappings, affairs, car chases and shoot outs.

The tone throughout is one of unbelievable happenings told in a giant over the top soap opera manner. Constantly pushing for bigger in every facet whilst its stars play it completely straight. 

Personally I hated almost everything about it! 

I was drawn to watch Emilia Perez when it received eleven BAFTA nominations including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and two for Best Supporting Actress. So as I watched it I became more and more baffled by what I saw. I wrote a list of notes afterwards as I always do that would later form my review and tried to consider if I had missed something. I now write this after the film received thirteen Oscar nominations breaking the record for a film not in the English language… leaving me even more baffled. 

So where do I start? 

This is a musical without a single good song. It hardly qualifies as a musical given its songs in the main are mumbling affairs that just substitute characters explaining what they are doing. They are incidental fillers rather than focal points. Selena Gomez, the only member of the cast who is a singer is not furnished with a single number that capitalises on her skills. Whilst Saldana and Gascon stumble through. 

The film’s plots are gigantic soap opera threads painted with the broadest brushes possible. The idea that we should feel sorry for a cartel boss at the beginning is shameful and the fact that the film tries to give them redemption is laughable. 

So why is it doing so well? Perhaps its broad strokes approach to large and difficult subjects appeals to some? But for me it does this at the expense of glamorising reprehensible behaviours from gaslighting to mass murder whilst being a criminally bad musical soap opera. 

I hope this does not join the likes of Crash, Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book in the list of worst Oscar movies.