EMILIA PÉREZ
Starring: Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofia Gascón, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Mark Ivanir, and Édgar Ramirez
Director: Jacques Audiard
KATIE
Emilia Pérez is brash, bold, and energetic, combining melodrama, tension, crime, violence, and dazzling musical numbers. It kept me guessing at every turn and consistently subverted my expectations, with the tone veering from tragic to uplifting to suspenseful. I just allowed it to take me on an insane ride instead of trying to figure out what it was supposed to be. Zoe Saldaña is also enthralling in one of the leading roles — I could not take my eyes off her. Overall, Emilia Pérez is full of spectacle, ambition, and uniqueness.
NICK
There will deservedly be a lot of awards chatter for the women of Emilia Pérez, particularly Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofía Gascón. The film itself, on the other hand, is kind of flawed. The musical numbers are very traditional (for the most part), and they don't really do anything to greatly enhance the story. In fact, I think you could watch a version of Pérez with all of them cut out and still be able to follow everything. That can only be viewed as a flaw. So, although you get the aforementioned performances and a twisty story, temper your expectations.
QUENTIN
I genuinely have no idea how Emilia Pérez works as well as it does. Sure, it features terrific performances across the board (especially Karla Sofía Gascón), but it’s just such a bonkers premise and approach that you keep waiting for it to collapse under the weight of its own ambitions. It never does, though. The gritty crime elements are tense, the musical sequences are percussive and propulsive, and the character dynamics feel real and sincere. The fact that it all comes together near flawlessly is a testament to director/screenwriter Jacques Audiard’s ability behind the camera and the self-confidence in his vision on the page.
ADRIANO
While there are a handful of misfires in Emilia Pérez, I still really admire the ambitions. In the back half, the movie gets really messy as they introduce a little too much and the genre anarchy becomes more of a headache than fun. Overall, though, I was into the insanity that writer/director Jacques Audiard introduced. Not all of the music hits, but I enjoyed the musical numbers themselves, and I thought Karla Sodia Gascón and Zoe Saldaña were amazing. Whenever the movie is centred and focused, I was thoroughly engaged enough to say I really enjoyed Emilia Pérez.
AMARÚ
There’s something freeing about being allowed to speak in the language you think in, and in Emilia Pérez, watching Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña act in (one of) their native languages unlocked a ferocity never seen in either. Their terrific performances, alongside the outstanding Karla Sofia Gascón, uplifts the film’s amateur (in the non-negative literal sense) features, with its flawed and unpolished edges highlighting its portrayals of flawed people. Emilia Pérez is the most interesting film I’ve seen in years, giving soul to the saints, sinners, the lost, and the found, with depth that 100 words cannot cover.
This film was reviewed by Quentin, Nick, Adriano, and Katie as part of Bitesize Breakdown's coverage of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, and 2024 BFI London Film Festival respectively.