At this year’s Golden Globes, Karla Sofía Gascón made history as the first publicly out trans woman nominated in a film category for her titular role in Emilia Pérez. Previously, she became the first publicly out trans actor to win a major prize at the Cannes Film Festival alongside co-stars Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez. The film won four Golden Globes, ending the night by beating Wicked for best musical. 

Emilia Pérez begins with Mexican drug lord Manitas Del Monte (Gascón) seeking disillusioned criminal defence lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Saldaña) to help him retire and start a new life as a woman — under the name ‘Emilia Pérez’. Emilia tells Rita she has always wanted to be a woman, assuring us beyond a doubt that she is ‘really’ trans, despite her situation’s poor optics. In faking Manitas’ death, director Jaques Audiard tries to accurately represent transness, which only serves to leverage Emilia’s gender transition as a convenient means for Manitas to avoid accountability for his crimes. 

The film attempts to speak to issues trans people face. Rita, newly in charge of Emilia’s care, is tasked with convincing a transphobic surgeon of her client’s humanity. The doctor says: “Lady, you know I only fix the body / but I will never fix the soul / If he’s a he, she’ll be a he, if he’s a she, she’ll be a she”. I initially read these incoherent lyrics as a clumsy demonstration of the logical incoherence of transphobia itself. However, this pseudo-deep word salad quickly becomes Emilia Pérez’s trademark, exemplified by Rita’s response: “Changing the body changes society / Changing society changes the soul / changing the soul changes society / changing society changes it all.”

Saldaña then looks straight down the barrel of the camera and delivers the kind of self-righteous provocation I can only barely stomach from a Lady Gaga song, saying: “Ladies and gentlemen, and everyone in between / and every body no one has ever been / I’ll never let you down!” Needless to say, I wasn’t prepared to have the movie’s thesis shoved down my throat a whole 25 minutes in. I found the messaging ironic coming from a character who repeatedly misgenders Emilia while discussing her gender-affirming care, which says a lot about how the film sees the trans woman it stages itself upon.

Emilia Pérez promises a lot, generically and thematically. Committed to giving the movie a chance, I suspended my disbelief and tried to quell my nausea. I allowed for the possibility that Saldaña and her power suit could save humanity, and that this movie might just make me a better person. Ultimately, I find that the film falls flat.

Gascón, though, is stunning. Her performance shines bright against an otherwise dull cast of characters. She is the heart of the movie and has many sweet moments — waking up after surgery, reuniting with her kids, and her romance with Epifanía (Adriana Paz). Gascón’s success is a testament to her acting skills because the writing doesn’t do her any favours. 

In a recent interview in the Hollywood Reporter, Gascón reveals she played a big role in developing Emilia’s character, rescuing her from Audiard’s mishandling. Audiard initially treated Emilia’s transition as a plot device and wanted Emilia to suddenly be interested in men after her transition. Luckily, Gascón didn’t let this happen — as far as I’m concerned, this movie would be nothing without its lesbian lovers. 

Audiard insists on telling a story he seems not to know or care much about in an attempt to win awards in the non-English film category with a cast half-filled with American Hollywood darlings. He creates a movie that is flashy, splashy, and utterly lacking in substance, besides ticking every genre box for awards season. Also unsurprising is Audiard relying on a trans woman to fix a trans character for him. Although, I find it satisfying to know that everything good about the movie came from Gascón.

As if there wasn’t enough going on, Emilia Pérez is also a musical — despite Audiard admitting that he’s “not really” a fan of the genre and Gascón calling musicals“boring.” After hearing Emilia Pérez’s soundtrack, I’m almost inclined to agree. 

In musicals, characters sing when speaking can’t adequately convey their emotions. Emilia Pérez never reaches these heights. Although few things are more painful to watch than a half-hearted musical number, the problems with the music come from the writing. The text setting was such that melodic high points often came on weak syllables, necessitating awkward delivery and causing an off-putting listening experience. Much of the music was done in a patter style — a type of breathy rhythmic talking. This was partly because some actors weren’t comfortable singing, but the biggest problem was the music’s poor writing. 

The writers also did Gascón — a middle-aged woman with a changed voice and minimal singing experience — a huge disservice by having her sing out of her range, resulting in a strained, throaty sound during her numbers. Only in the final song — where Epifanía sings beautifully and powerfully in an alto range — do we discover that someone in the cast can actually sing, rather than waver between breathy pitches. 

I wish the writers had gone this route with Emilia’s songs — they would’ve better suited both her character and her vocal range. Given the movie’s essentialism, I wouldn’t be surprised if forcing Gascón to be a soprano was an attempt to ‘prove’ Emilia’s womanhood.

Considering the film’s glaring faults, I am continually shocked by its critical acclaim, most recently the 13 Oscar nominations it received last week. But I probably shouldn’t be surprised. This is far from the first time a boring and essentializing movie is called brave for its cursory engagement with queerness. 

Broad audiences are more critical. One tweet captions an early scene of Rita touring a medical center: “*this* winning against [Wicked] in this particular category is laughable.” While the last thing I want to do is incite an angry mob of theatre kids, this scene was actually one of my favourites. It’s so camp! Rita inquires about gender-affirming surgery, when one doctor looks her up and down, then asks, “Is it for you?” The doctors wait expectantly with toothy grins, a hungry look in their eyes until Rita — deeply offended — assures them she’s not the patient. 

A musical number proceeds, where the doctors showcase the surgeries they offer: “Vaginoplasty? Yes! / Rhinoplasty? Yes! / Laryngoplasty? Yes!”. The music cuts out for a closeup of Rita and we hear her breath catch. Is she excited? Overwhelmed? Maybe a little turned on? The scene then ends as abruptly as it began. 

I think the movie should have gone further in this direction. The film’s imagery of trans women on gurneys treads a fine line between unsettling commentary and voyeuristic spectacle. While it could have been an interesting reflection on the objectification of trans bodies, it instead feels unearned, reducing their vulnerability to an aesthetic flourish. There’s a missed opportunity here to interrogate the violence inherent in such depictions — both literal and cinematic. By failing to fully engage with this discomfort, the film applies trans women as props rather than autonomous agents, undercutting the complexity it seems to aim for with no shred of the self-awareness required to make this critique. 

Though Gascón brings Emilia to life, she is ultimately reduced to a symbol — first as a mother figure — for her children and as the face of La Lucecita, an organization she and Rita create to aid families affected by cartel violence. She later becomes a symbol in a literal sense when she is beatifically canonized: crowds flood the streets of Mexico City carrying her statue and singing her name. The real Emilia, of course, is nowhere to be found. 

Despite Emilia Pérez’s success demonstrating the flawed nature of the mainstream film establishment, it also brought Gascón into the spotlight — for better or worse. Though I am increasingly skeptical of Hollywood’s prestige class, I do hope Gascón wins a couple of Oscars, if only so I can see more of her — ideally in some better movies.