Emilia Pérez
If you are familiar with the work of Jacques Audiard, you'll know the French filmmaker is fond of experimenting with different genres and styles, but nothing can really prepare you for just how audacious and wonderfully different Emilia Pérez is.
Part musical, part crime thriller, part flamboyant and OTT soap opera, Emilia Pérez is an uplifting tale of personal acceptance and sacrifice, told with passion, grit and Broadway-style pizzaz.
Boasting career-defining performances from Karla Sofía Gascón and Zoe Saldana, and solid support from a truly on-form Selena Gomez, Emilia Pérez is a spectacular and awe-inspiring cinematic wonder, boasting stunning musical numbers that shimmer and bedazzle with a heartfelt intensity.
The story follows Rita, a talented lawyer living in Mexico who has carved out a successful career for herself defending hard-nosed criminals while the senior partners in her firm are only too happy to take the credit.
But while Rita's uncompromising reputation as one of the country's hardest working lawyers precedes her, it's her own reputation that attracts the attention of the infamous cartel leader, Manitas Del Monte.
Forcefully escorted to meet with Manitas in secret, Rita discovers the mob boss wants to pay her $2 million to whisk him and his family away from the cartel life, but what's more, he also wants Rita to assist with his transition to becoming the woman he has always known that he is within his heart.
Four years later, Rita is confronted with a blast from the past when the enigmatic Emilia Pérez walks into her life, and Emilia needs Rita's help with some unfinished business.
Trans actor, Emilia Pérez has provided Karla Sofía Gascón with the role of a lifetime. You can only imagine the deeply personal journey that has brought Sofía Gascón to this point in her career, and every heartache, every triumph, is visible within Gascón's piercing eyes.
A trained dancer before she became an actor, Zoe Saldana goes back to her roots here and dazzles in a number of routines that show just how controlled and poised a performer she is. Coupled with her talent for delivering a powerful intensity on screen, Saldana gives Rita the unassuming determination that the role requires.
And then there's Selena Gomez, the Disney Channel alumna who, like Saldana, lets her talent for the stage mould her performance here as a wife and mother surviving in a uncertain and unpredictable world.
Gripping, powerful and emotionally provocative, Emilia Pérez delivers passion, intensity and grace in equal measure.
Do not miss it.
