‘Emilia Pérez’ Is As Bad As Audiences Say, And Its Nominations Are Baffling – Forbes
Emilia PérezI always try to end up watching the major nominees from the Oscars each year, including every Best Picture nominee. As such, I knew I had to eventually watch Emilia Pérez, the Netflix feature which has landed a record 13 nomination for a foreign film and is tied with last year’s Best Picture winner Oppenheimer with that total. The film has created a wide disparity between industry figures and awards show voters, critics, and general audiences.Clearly voters think it’s stellar, lauding it with praise and dozens of nominations, and now it appears to be an Oscar favorite for at least a number of categories. Critics were a little less enthused, and if Emilia Pérez won Best Picture, it would be the lowest critic-scored movie to do so since Crash. Audiences are far harsher, as it currently has a dismal 25% audience score and has had many clips go viral, becoming nothing short of a meme in many circles, especially Film Twitter.But I did not want to judge it until I had seen it myself, and now after doing so no, the endless string of nominations do not make sense. Emilia Pérez is not a good movie. Not a good crime drama, not a good musical and by all accounts, not a good representation of the groups it focuses on, namely Mexicans and trans people. And that is also according to many Mexicans and trans people.The film stars Zoe Saldana as Rita, a lawyer forcibly recruited by a crime boss, Manitas, played by Karla Sofía Gascón, who wants to undergo gender-confirming surgery to become a woman. She emerges as Emilia Pérez, but will not give up a connection to her wife, Jessi, played by Selena Gomez, and her children.Emilia PérezOne issue with the film is that Pérez’s transformation, though rooted in a genuine desire to change, is often played off like a disguise, used almost entirely to “hide” from her wife while still having a relationship with her children in a storyline that is uncomfortably similar to Mrs. Doubtfire, even if it’s not played for laughs.Pérez is also meant to be some sort of local saint, locating cartel-killed corpses for their families. But as a character she’s completely unsympathetic. She jerks her family around, banishing them to Switzerland, then yanking them back home under the guise of further protection when she really just wants a covert, again “disguised,” relationship with her children. When understandably Jessi wants to move on, get remarried and form a new family unit, Emilia erupts with vengeance, freezing her money and demanding her children stay, which would understandably freak out Jessi.Saldana’s character originally appears like the star, then is mostly sidelined as she becomes sidekick and observer to Emilia’s story. She does have a great musical dance number at a gala that is the highlight of the film. Possibly its only one.But the rest of this movie being a musical? It seems ill-advised. There are obviously many incredible musicals out there and many award-worthy, but every time the film breaks into song, it’s jarring, and many “songs” are mostly just characters singing their lines for twenty seconds or so. The Oscars have a long history with nominating high quality musicals, including another one this year alone in the form of Wicked. But Emilia Pérez differentiates itself from those in a way that feels uncomfortable rather than innovative with its short numbers and often laughable lyrics. It’s not clear why it should be considered in the same league as past lauded genre entries.Emelia PérezThe film feels inauthentic, and one common complaint is that it’s a story about a Mexican family set mostly in Mexico that was directed and written by French people and filmed entirely on a soundstage in Paris. It feels like it wants to broadcast a progressive message, but ultimately comes off like a parody of one much of the time with its problems with Mexican dialogue and the characterization of its trans lead, and I understand how it often offends the groups it claims to want to elevate.A few nominations perhaps make sense here. Perhaps Saldana, perhaps star Karla Sofía Gascón who is making history as the first trans nominee for Best Actress, which is heartening to see. But this film as a whole does not work. It’s impossible to recommend to any fans of the individual genres it tries to operate within, and if you are making your way through the Best Picture nominee list, it’s one I would recommend skipping entirely.Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site’s Terms of Service. We’ve summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:So, how can you be a power user?Thanks for reading our community guidelines. 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