‘Emilia Perez’ review: A stirring musical about the power of transformation

Emilia Perez channels the transformative power of the musical for a film about the power of transformation. Jacques Audiard’s Cannes-decorated movie is a stirring fairy tale about a man who becomes a woman after having the modern equivalent of a magic potion: gender reassignment surgery.

Manitas, however, is no ordinary man. He’s a drug cartel leader from Mexico who has tonnes of dirty money earned through slaughter. When he hires the lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldana) to find the right doctor for him, she is terrified but interested too. Keen to make serious money, Rita helps Manitas transition into Emilia Perez and resettles his wife Jessie (Selena Gomez) and their children.

Rita doesn’t initially recognise Emilia (Karla Sofia Gascon) when she makes a comeback and demands to be reunited with her children. Nor does Jessie. The film carries off its suspension of disbelief through seamless transitions into musical numbers.

Characters break into song in the middle of speech; dialogue is rapped out rather than spoken; sets are transformed into soundstages at a finger’s snap. The soundtrack, by Camille and Clement Ducol, doesn’t get in the way of the plot as much as lifts it when the contrivances begin to show.

Emilia Perez, which is France’s submission for the Best International...

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