A crime musical about a Mexican cartel leader who wants to fake her own death before undergoing gender-reassignment surgery — that’s definitely not the kind of risk-taking fare you see every day from Netflix. But such is Emilia Pérez, a new film from French director and “renegade auteur” Jacques Audiard with stars that include Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Karla Sofía Gascón.
Coming to Netflix on Nov. 13, Emilia Pérez follows four women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. Cartel leader Emilia (Gascón) enlists Rita (Saldaña), who’s an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so that Emilia can finally “live authentically as her true self,” Netflix explains.
Like many people, I’ve been largely displeased with Netflix’s film output for a while now, partly as a result of how mediocre so much of it has been — aimed at offending no one, while also pleasing almost no one. Here, though, Gascón said in an interview with Netflix about the new movie that: “You have a musical that is not a musical, an action movie that’s not an action movie, a drama that’s not a drama, a comedy that’s not a comedy. It is such a great gift, and I’m so proud to be part of it.”
Making Emilia Pérez all the more exciting is that it caused a big stir at Cannes this year, taking home the jury prize in addition to Saldaña scoring the best actress award. A far cry, in other words, from some of the streaming giant’s most recent forgettable movies, like the dumb Mark Wahlberg spy drama The Union and Jerry Seinfeld’s Pop-Tart movie.
About Emilia Pérez, Saldaña raved in a Netflix interview that: “It was described to me as this film noir that didn’t really exist in any of the conventional kind of genres, but it was a musical. It was actually an opera, and based in a crime world, but there was going to be a sense of justice, and validation, and sanctification. And I was just like, ‘What?’ I had to read it more than once. And then, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.”
A Netflix movie that you can’t stop thinking about — what a novel concept.
