A film by Jacques Audiard
With: Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir, Eduardo Aladro, Emiliano Hasan, James Gerard, Eric Geynes
Rita, an underrated lawyer working for a large law firm more interested in getting criminals out of jail than bringing them to justice, is hired by the leader of a criminal organization.
Our rate: **
There’s no denying Emilia Perez‘s audacity (and we don’t think any reference to Selena Gomez is coincidental). Chic, a little shocking, but above all, knock! What’s the point of the undeniable formal mastery – we’re reminded of Larrain‘s cinema, the choreography and other staging effects – if not a script based exclusively on WTF, offbeat lines and situations, song lyrics (surprisingly funny on the whole, an ingredient too often lacking in Audiard’s filmography) that clumsily – and naively too – seeks to tick boxes? Indeed, it’s hard to see this cross between a cartel film and a West Side Story-style musical as a genuine trans-identity anthem… It’s a bit thick, but since Greta Gerwig has committed Barbie, nothing is less certain: will the hyper-kitsch musical universe pull her in?
It’s a pity, because apart from this scenario and the choice of Selena Gomez-style music, the work is evident at every level of this Saint Laurent production. Too much, in fact, and we’re almost back to what was once known on our side of the Atlantic as the Cinéma du look: beautiful (at least according to the current canons of images reflected by the world of luxury), flashy, favoring highly animated images and multiple effects to accompany music (giant music videos), rather than composing a conceptually richer structure, or articulating a literary, intellectual, artistic or even poetic thought. Or to offer a sincere portrait.
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