CANNES, France – On paper, Jacques Audiard’s much-talked-about film at the Cannes Film Festival, “Emilia Perez,” wouldn’t seem like a good idea for a film at all.
The film, which premiered Saturday at Cannes, is probably the first film that can be sincerely compared to “Sicario” and “Mrs. Doubtfire” – and that’s just the beginning.
Zoe Saldaña stars as Rita, a Mexico City lawyer hired by the Manitas cartel boss to help him escape Mexico for gender confirmation surgery. This ends up being the beginning of a relationship that will continue between Rita and Emilia Perez (Karla Sofía Gascón). Emilia returns years later, posing as Manitas’s sister, to be close to the children who live with his ex-wife (Selena Gomez).
Plus, it’s a musical.
As gonzo as its premise is, or possibly because of it, “Emilia Perez” shook up Cannes mid-festival. Although not all critics swooned over its melodramatic grandeur, there was applause even after the film’s press screening.
“It came to me as a kind of opera,” Audiard told reporters on Sunday.
Audiard, the multifaceted French filmmaker behind “A Prophet,” “Rust and Bone” and 2015 Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Dheepan,” said the idea first occurred to him while reading a novel with a chapter about a drug dealer who wanted to change his identity. From this starting point, Audiard constructed a mutant narrative worthy of a soap opera.
“To get into this kind of Jacques film you have to be like Jacques, who is a little crazy,” said Gascón, laughing.
While the film features a pair of well-known stars like Gomez and Saldaña, Gascón is the film’s revelation. Gascón, 52, who is trans, plays both the ruthless Manitas, with a grill covering his teeth, and the benevolent and cheerful Emilia. Both roles have striking physical presences.
“At first it was difficult. I didn’t want to play the role of Manitas. I just wanted to play the role of Emília. It took me several months to convince myself that I could do both,” said Gascón. “At one point we didn’t know who would play the two characters and then it became pretty obvious that it would be me.”
As audacious as “Emilia Perez” may seem, it sounds extremely sincere. The film, pondering questions of personal change, follows Rita and Emilia over the years and across several countries. The songs are written by French pop musician Camille; Clément Docul does the scoring; and Gomez spends a moment at the microphone at a karaoke bar.
Gascón said on Sunday that he hopes Emilia is seen not just as a trans character.
“Trans people should be treated like anyone else. I’m not better or worse than anyone else. I think we should be taken for what we are,” said Gascón. “We have our body and we can change it because we want to.”
The narrative leaps and tonal juxtapositions of “Emilia Perez” may be too much for some, but for Audiard, that was a big part of the attraction.
“Something shocks me deeply in Mexico – all these problems with missing people. There are entire regions that you cannot go to because they are not safe,” said the director. “I wanted to do a musical. So why not against the backdrop of a tragedy?”
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