Emilia Perez was the big winner at Sunday’s Golden Globes, scooping four prizes after receiving the most nominations ahead of the 82nd ceremony.
The Spanish-language French musical won best film, female supporting actor for Zoe Saldaña, original song, and film not in the English language.
On paper the genre-bending crime musical is an unlikely success story for Netflix, which has been streaming the film since November.
But the movie has been quietly adding to its plaudits for months, starting with the huge splash it made at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize and the first Best Actress Award for an ensemble.
Now the film, starring Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez in its female-led ensemble cast, is making headway in its Oscars bid. Last week it led the Academy Awards shortlists, taking six slots in International Feature, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, Original Score, and Original Song for two of its musical numbers.
The film has some tangled origins. The French production is based on Audiard’s opera libretto of the same name, which was in turn loosely adapted from Boris Razon’s 2018 novel Écoute.
Emilia Perez was the big winner at Sunday’s Golden Globes , scooping four prizes after receiving the most nominations ahead of the 82nd ceremony
On paper the genre-bending crime musical is an unlikely success story for Netflix , which has been streaming the film since November – pictured Zoe Saldana and Karla Sofía Gascón
Set around Mexico City, it centers around topics such as family, ambition, possibility of change, cartels, human disappearances, gender-affirmation, money and corruption.
It focuses on cartel boss Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón) who has a smart, but undervalued lawyer named Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña) kidnapped.
Manitas wants gender confirmation surgery, and for Rita to handle the logistics: Hiring the discreet surgeon, faking Manitas’ death and transporting the wife, Jessi (Gomez) and two kids to their new home in Switzerland; in return, Rita will get rich.
Four years later, Rita’s gotten a glow up. Gone are her bush eyebrows and frumpy suit and she´s leading a cosmopolitan life in London, something that we get to see all too briefly.
Then, Rita meets another woman who´s gone through a major transformation, Emilia Pérez (Gascón). Audiard plays briefly with the idea that Rita assumes Emilia is there to kill her, to rid the world of any remaining evidence of those who know what happened.
In actuality, she just misses her kids and wants them back in Mexico to live with her. It’s up to Rita to get them to move once more, in with Emilia, posing as an aunt they’ve never met before.
Chief among its many themes is sisterhood and in his first acceptance speech of the Golden Globes, Audiard declared: ‘I don’t have sisters so maybe this is why I made a film about sisterhood. If there were more sisters in the world, it might be a better place.’
Major female players in Hollywood have championed the film with Meryl Streep praising the movie and Gomez’ performance in particular, describing it as ‘beautiful, smudged, sensual, incredible’.
The Spanish-language French musical won best film, female supporting actor for Zoe Saldaña, original song, and film not in the English language
The movie has been quietly adding to its plaudits for months, starting with the huge splash it made at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival , where it won the Jury Prize (pictured as Selena Gomez)
Critics meanwhile have been falling over themselves to post the most rave reviews with glowing think pieces lauding its bravery in focusing on underrepresented characters and delivering ‘provocative’ subject matter through a musical genre.
Amongst the hype though is criticism directed at the depiction of a transwoman.
Harron Walker for The Cut led the charge, writing: ‘I don’t demand total realism from every film that I see. I can even appreciate the camp, whether intentional or not, of Emilia waking up from her 5-million simultaneous surgeries, her face bandaged like a mummy save for her eyes and lips.’
‘But I expect that a filmmaker so taken by the concept of transitioning, one who’s displayed a certain level of conscious sensitivity in his previous efforts to depict lives unlike his own, to at least display an informed understanding of what that concept actually looks like in practice.’
David Opie for Yahoo declared: ‘It’s the film’s preoccupation with the surface exterior of Emilia herself that ends up being tedious, playing into transphobic tropes long thought banished to the realms of hell where Buffalo Bill’s dress and Ace Ventura’s hair wax can be found.’
The movie is a breakout moment for lead Karla , 52, who transitioned in 2018 after years spent acting in Mexican telenovelas
Set around Mexico City, it centers around topics such as family, ambition, possibility of change, cartels, human disappearances, gender-affirmation, money and corruption
It focuses on cartel boss Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón) who has a smart, but undervalued lawyer named Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña) kidnapped
Selena Gomez has also found herself under fire for her Spanish-language skills.
The actress responded to a viral clip of Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez’s criticising her accent which was deemed ‘indefensible.’
Gomez replied to his critique in the comment section of TikTok clip showing the CODA actor’s comments: ‘I understand where you are coming from..I’m sorry I did the best I could with the time I was given. Doesn’t take away from how much work and heart I put into this movie.’
Something to celebrate though is the fact that the movie is a breakout moment for lead Karla, 52, who transitioned in 2018 after years spent acting in Mexican telenovelas.
Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew during the movie’s best picture win on Sunday, Karla declared ‘the light always wins over darkness’.
‘I have a lot of things to say to you because you can maybe put us in jail, you can beat us up, but you never can take away our soul, our resistance, or our identity.
‘And I want to say to you, raise your voice and say, “I am who I am, not who you want.”‘