4/5
Review by John P. Harvey.
Rita (Zoe Saldaña) is jaded with her successes as a lawyer regularly obtaining acquittals for murderous thugs. And then one of Mexico’s most dangerous criminals, the drug lord Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascón), makes her an offer she cannot refuse. Her part is to help him apply his ill-gotten gains to undergoing a sex change — without even letting his wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez), suspect — and protecting his family.
Thus begins a long process of deception, disappearance, and transformation that commences with providing for Manitas’s family as he disappears into years of surgery and recovery.
To say much more of the story would be to give away events that should remain surprises. Suffice it to say that the film is filled with action and intermittent tension, with some warm moments and some, perhaps unnecessarily, shocking.
It’s hardly a comedy; rather, it’s a dramatic crime film, but one with a heart buried deeply within it. Most amazingly, it’s also a musical, with original songs infused with emotion and energy. Songs can tend to interrupt the action in some musicals, but in this case they tended to maintain the impetus, and a little highly choreographed dancing added further energyx.
Emilia Pérez is an amazing tale of the widespread consequences of one man’s desperation to be what he is not, and his equal unwillingness to leave behind what he is. Though it isn’t a true tale, it could be.