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Emilia Pérez

Jacques Audiard makes a feature film roughly every three or four years, and at the age of 72, at this rate, he may not have too many left. For me, this is one of the tragedies of modern cinema. This bloke can do almost no wrong (his first film, See How They Fall was his only misstep). So here he is with his tenth (!) feature, Emilia Pérez. It's a pretty bonkers story about a Mexican drug cartel boss who hires a young, marginalised lawyer to help him transition to a woman.

The film tackles some important themes - the transitioning element, but also racism and the disappeared population of Mexico. The twist is that it's all performed as a musical, and the balance between fantastic and ludicrous is stretched throughout. Most musicals live or die by the music and luckily, there are some great numbers in this (one of them, El Mal, just took out best song at the Golden Globbies). On the other end of the scale is a song about the details of transition surgery, where a doctor warbles the line, "Penis to vagina!" Kudos and/or brickbats to the French musos Camille and Clément Ducol for the film's music.

Most of the cast are top notch. Karla Sofía Gascón as Emilia portrays the menace and tenderness of the character in equally excellent portions. Zoe Saldana is revelatory as Rita - she's always had the potential for something like this. It's only the miscast Selena Gomez who doesn't quite rise to the occasion here.

There are some quite moving scenes, especially related to parenthood and the idea that for Mantinas/Emilia to live her best life, she has to make sure her family forgets her. It's an ambitious, intriguing story, slightly undermined by the delivery method.

There's also the feeling that after setting up all these notions, the resolution kind of got away from Audiard and his writing collaborators, Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius and Nicolas Livecchi. It's a surprisingly abrupt climax and not the most satisfying either. Overall, this is a flawed work but fascinating nonetheless.

Emilia Pérez opens Jan 16th at Luna and Palace cinemas.

See also:

So permit me to go on an Audiard spree - A Prophet (2009) is probably the best of his films but I lean towards The Beat That My Heart Skipped (2005). Rust and Bone (2012), with the majestic Marion Cotillard, and Dheepan (2015) are also gems.

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