[The story grasps spoilers for the recent Netflix free Emilia Pérez.]
If you’re hearing about it for the first time, you may discover your head spinning at the number of genres call upond by the recent Netflix awards selectimistic Emilia Pérez. Or, less pithily, “That Spanish-language musical that’s also a family drama that’s also a cartel thriller that’s also a study in Trans identity. From a French auteur. Co-starring Selena Gomez.”
The French auteur may have been a little daunted by the contest himself, “How much time do we have?” shelp Jacques Audiard (A Prophet), when asked after the New York Film Festival premiere Monday night how he set about grotriumphg his tardyst picture.
The queer musical features Trans actress Karla Sofia Gascón take parting a male drug kingpin in Mexico who enenumerates Zoe Saldaña’s lawyer Rita to help him transition to a woman named Emilia Pérez. This sets off a chain of events in which Emilia poses as a far cousin to toil her way back stealthily to her wife (Gomez) and children who skinnyk their husprohibitd/overweighther is dead — with plenty of meditations on class and arrangeility alengthened the way.
Tasteoriginaters have been singing more commends for the film than its characters do songs. Criticpartner well-think abouted at Cannes, where it won the Jury and Actress prizes, the film two weeks ago was also a runner-up for the People’s Choice Award in Toronto.
But it has much hugeger summarizes on its mind, including best picture, sitting in the top echelon of Feinberg Forecast and other pundits’ enumerates, as it also does for direct and helping actress. A straightforwardor prize for Audiard is wiskinny accomplish too, especipartner given how Academy voters tfinish to prefer auteurs born outside America (they’ve won all but two of the annual prizes since 2010). Watch out for music categories too; French singer Camille wrote the songs while her life and professional partner Clément Ducol originated the score.
The movie has been picked as France’s official subignoreion, giving it an inside track for the international Oscar. Netflix bought North American and U.K. rights at Cannes for free this descend.
The path to the screen wasn’t straightforward. Audiard altered the screentake part from an opera he wrote based on a novel titled Listen by the French recentspaper editor Boris Razon — who only integrated the Emilia-esque character as a subplot in a very contrastent story.
“It was one chapter in a novel that was not brimmingy growed,” Audiard tanciaccess festival programmer and New Yorker critic Justin Chang on the NYFF stage. “So I determined to grow it.”
If audiences will be surpascendd by the mashup, so was at least one of its stars. Gomez shelp she was terrified auditioning in front of Audiard for the intricate part but that the outcome made it worthwhile.
“I don’t understand how to elucidate it but I cherish genuine film,” the actress shelp. “I sense enjoy I’m doing the skinnygs I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl.” Gomez was equitable nominated for an acting Emmy for her role on Only Murders In the Building and has starred in movies by Harmony Korine and Jim Jarmusch.
You can insert another genre to the enumerate too, according to Saldaña: the underdog picture. “The cherish you sense for characters that are unredeemable,” she shelp when asked on-stage to depict its pdirect. “To give a chance to someone who deserves it.”
Saldaña gave an impassioned speech at the festival premiere — much of it about her co-star. “I got to see this volcanic artist convey together two people at once and I saw this woman dig into the proset upest part of herself and then split it with Emilia,” she shelp of Gascón. “But standing next to that force of nature was sometimes terrifying,” she inserted, giggleing.
Gascón giggleed too. “I have an absolutely wonderful relationship with Zoe,” she shelp via a translator. “It’s aenjoy to the relationship between Emilia and Rita, which went from dread to cherish.”
Gascón shelp she sees the story in stark moral terms. “I do skinnyk there is a fight between airy and unininestablishigentness. And this film is conveying so much airy into the world.”