Emilia Perez was among the buzziest films at Cannes this year, receiving a nine minute standing ovation at its premiere and taking home a Jury Prize. Described as a cartel crime musical, I kind of assumed this would be right up my alley so I'm sad to say I was a bit disappointed as it ended up being one of my least favourites from what I saw at TIFF.
I'm going to avoid going in depth with a synopsis, as the surprise narratively is what actually worked best for me. To put it simply, this follows Rita (Zoe Saldana), a great but under-appreciated lawyer in Mexico. The leader of a cartel brings her in to aid with a secret task and then help them disappear.
I'll start with what worked, and that is without a doubt the performances. Zoe Saldana despite being the first character we meet winds up becoming a supporting character, but her performance is among the best I've seen from her. She commands the screen with a ton of confidence, only to bring it with the emotional beats when necessary. I'll get into my thoughts on the film as a musical later on, but she is without question the best performer in the musical scenes, especially the first of the film which I really enjoyed. Karla Sofia Gascon is a major breakout here, coming out of nowhere to truly wow with her performance. I won't get into some of the details of her performance as that would spoil it a bit, but she has a magnificently commanding presence, although I did find her lacking in the musical moments. Selena Gomez is also pretty good here. She doesn't have as much to do as the other two, but she was quite good and at times even made me forget it was her, really blending into the character in a strong way.
This is just the second film of Jacques Audiard I've seen, the other being The Sisters Brothers, and I need to see more as I just haven't fully connected with either film as much as I'd like. Stylistically I actually appreciated a lot here. There are some moments of flashy editing that gave some good energy, and on the whole this is a pretty damn well shot movie. There is one major thing holding it back to me, and it's the fact that it's a musical. Don't get me wrong, I love musicals, but it just really doesn't work here at all in my opinion. The first number with Zoe Saldana was pretty strong, and there's one other I enjoyed, but on the whole they completely derail the pace and tone of what is otherwise a serious and well made thriller. Even within the songs the tone is inconsistent, with some like that opening one giving it a fun and exciting energy, and many others coming across as sappy and sentimental with some honestly cringe worthy lyrics. There's one between Saldana and a doctor and it's genuinely hard to watch, and another where Sofia Gascon is basically mumbling and it just completely sucks the life out of these scenes. If tonally the film committed to the campiness of some of the musical numbers I could see it being a good time, but any time the musical element isn't there it's a film that takes itself so seriously that it just doesn't fit. The positives are enough for me to say I liked the film, I do think it's good still, but there is such a strong feeling of what could have been if it weren't for the missteps creatively. I will say though, I really enjoyed the last act. 3/5
Comments
Post a Comment