Why, for Mexicans, Emilia Perez is a ‘waste of time’ and worse, for all its 13 Oscar nods

The movie Emilia Perez has finally hit the big screen in Mexico City – the principal setting for the genre-bending musical about narco-violence and transgender culture that has garnered 13 Oscar nominations, including best picture. The reception has been frosty at best. In its opening last month, Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language, French-made melodrama finished eighth in Mexican box-office receipts, well behind other less celebrated Oscar hopefuls, such as Conclave, a Vatican mystery, and Flow, an animated feature from Latvia. And near-empty screening rooms in recent days suggest that viewer numbers are diminishing amid a mostly hostile – if not outright indignant – audience. “A waste of time,” said Areli Vazquez, 24, a psychology student leaving a multiplex on a recent evening. “At the end, you’re left with no clear message about los narcos, about the trans issue, about the disappeared …. just a superficial look at all of these matters.” Carmela Espinoza, 67, a retired primary-school teacher, added: “It was offensive and made fun of Mexicans.” Finding people who did not hate the movie was not easy, but there were some, such as Omar Robles, 42, whose curiosity was piqued by the social media firestorm directed at the film. “I did not really like the movie, but I don’t think it was as bad as they say,” said Robles, an Uber driver. “It shows the reality of Mexico. And we Mexicans don’t like it when people speak badly about us. “But the film doesn’t lie. Everything it shows happens, and sometimes it’s even worse. I would recommend it.” The movie tells the story of a brutal drug kingpin, Manitas del Monte, who, for reasons that remain obscure, decides to fake his own death and undergo a sex-change procedure. He emerges as Emilia Perez, a philanthropist who puts her illicit fortune into a charity to help people find loved ones who “disappeared” in the cartel violence she once fomented. Audiard, the film’s French director, has said he aimed for a jarring cinematic experience, something over the top. “You’re in a narco movie and, then, bam, you’re in a telenovela,” he told Variety magazine, comparing the film and its idiosyncratic song-and-dance sequences to an opera. “I wanted this floating thing,” added Audiard, who received an Oscar nomination for directing. The movie re-creates some of Mexico’s most doleful scenes: desperate women handing out images of missing loved ones, people sifting through dirt in search of remains, and gunmen leading away hooded captives, probably never to be seen again. Still, some of the most pointed pushback has come from Mexico’s “collectives”, grass roots volunteers – mostly women – who search for the more than 100,000 disappeared, often risking their lives. In the movie, cartel gangsters appear to provide guidance to searchers about where to find clandestine graves. “The narcos never give us information about how to find our relatives,” said Virginia Garay Cazares, 53, whose son, a hot-dog vendor, was 19 when he disappeared in 2018. “And no one gives us money to help, either. We pay for everything ourselves.” “It’s fine with us if the director of this film wants to become famous,” said Garay, who heads a collective. “But why did not he come and talk to us? Then he could have presented reality like it is. Not like he imagines it.” In line with the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who pick the Oscar nominees, reviewers in the United States and Europe have generally celebrated Emilia Perez. “A lawyer, a kingpin and his wife walk into a musical, and Emilia Perez is born,” reviewer Robert Abele wrote in The Los Angeles Times, labelling the film a “full-bodied, colourful epic about transformation, redemption and finding one’s voice in a hard world”. Most of those positive reviews appeared before the torrent of objections from Mexico gathered critical mass. In the view of many in Mexico, Emilia Perez traffics in distortion and stereotype. The critics say the gang leader’s metamorphosis defies reality, and that the kindly, do-gooder persona of Emilia Perez mocks the victims who suffered during her former, malevolent reign. The film “always maintains an implausible tone, colourful, neon, with a Mexico that is more background than substance”, columnist Alejandro Aleman recently wrote in El Universal, Mexico’s leading newspaper. Mexican filmmaker Camila Aurora has released a short parody of Emilia Perez that mocks all things French, from baguettes and berets to wine and thin moustaches. The spoof, Johanne Sacreblu, has had more than 2 million views on YouTube. However, some in Mexico City argue that outrage about the film may reflect a collective sense of denial about how much violence has ripped asunder the fabric of Mexican society. “Ask yourself: why does a film make a greater scandal than the reality that it is trying to present?” columnist Pascal Beltran del Rio wrote in Mexico’s Excelsior newspaper. Critics also note that none of the three principal actors is Mexican. A Spaniard, Karla Sofia Gascon, commands the title role, while US-born actresses Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana also star. Saldana was nominated for an Oscar as supporting actress, while Gascon garnered a nod as lead actress – becoming the first openly transgender actor to be so honoured. That has not prevented scorn from the LGBTQ community in Mexico and elsewhere. GLAAD, the advocacy group, declared that Emilia Perez presented “a profoundly retrograde portrayal of a trans woman”. Deepening the controversy was the sudden resurfacing of several old social media posts from Gascon expressing incendiary views on Muslims, George Floyd and diversity. In a statement through Netflix, which is distributing the movie, the actress said she was “deeply sorry to those I have caused pain”. She later deactivated her X account. Even though the film was shot in France, not Mexico, it has some authentic touches. The movie opens with the plaintive, recorded appeals of a young girl soliciting old appliances and other scrap metal. The high-pitched plea does indeed loop daily across the capital as the recyclers make their rounds in pickups packed with junk. But long-time Mexico City denizens point out incongruities: the prevalence of palm trees, misnamed or non-existent institutions, a court scene with a jury even though criminal jury trials do not exist here. “Pure opportunism,” concluded Jorge Volpi, a Mexican essayist writing in Spain’s El País newspaper. “Originality that emerges from vain and superficial impulse.” The cascading criticism from Mexico may be having some effect. Just before the release here of Emilia Perez, the director offered an apology. “If there are things that, to Mexicans, seem scandalous in Emilia, then I am sorry,” Audiard told CNN Espanol. “Cinema doesn’t provide answers, it only asks questions. But maybe the questions in Emilia Perez are incorrect.” Still, the march to the Oscars proceeds.

Why, for Mexicans, Emilia Perez is a ‘waste of time’ and worse, for all its 13 Oscar nods

Filmed in France with non-Mexican actors, musical about a drug cartel boss who has a sex change angers Mexicans, including LGBTQ community