If you watched the Golden Globes, you probably noticed the 2024 film Emilia Pérez sweeping with four awards — including Best Musical and Best Motion Picture. Since the awards, viewers have been speculating about the merit of this 11-time BAFTA-nominated movie. Emilia Pérez follows the story of a callous cartel boss covertly transitioning into a woman and building a new life for herself. Although some critics seem to praise the musical, the film is also receiving heavy criticism. Although the film’s soundtrack lacks in many aspects, the biggest issue is the film’s lack of accurate cultural representation, as well as its portrayal of gender transition, attempting to take on many real-world topics with an astounding lack of research or sympathy.
Although Emilia Pérez is set in Mexico and the majority of the script and songs are in Spanish, it was directed by a white French man, Jacques Audiard. One of the most noticeable things at first glance is that the whole cast of Emilia Pérez did not know Spanish, and the evident unfamiliarity of the stars with the language takes you out of the movie. Additionally, there was almost no one Mexican in the cast.
One controversial moment surrounding the movie’s release is when Director Audiard told the press: “I didn’t study much, I already knew what I needed to understand.” The outcome of his lack of research is apparent, making a lot of things wrong when it comes to portraying pretty much all the topics discussed in the movie.
Mexican critics called out the movie’s depiction of their culture, some calling it ‘inauthentic,’ and a ‘mockery.’ In the film, Audiard represents Mexico’s entire culture as a whole as being rampaging and violent, which is both repulsive and untrue. Although the very large majority of the country is non-belligerent, there is real cartel violence in Mexico, where real people are affected by murder and crime. Audiard insensitively uses real-world violence to carry his plot, while seemingly trying to get the audience to sympathize with Pérez’s crimes.
Another big issue surrounding the screenplay was the inaccuracy of many trans topics, as well as how the film seems to hit Emilia with every problematic trans trope in the book. In an article for Vox, culture writer Kyndall Cunningham wrote that “Emilia Pérez is a regressive movie that thinks it’s woke.” Despite Pérez being played by a transgender woman, who I believe delivered a good performance given the material she had to work with, it is clear that the trans community was hardly taken into account, and was not the target audience, Hollywood was. Considering all of this, it’s apparent that Audiard took an idea that hypothetically could have been captivating, and turned it into an exploitative cash grab.