The longer you stay at a film festival, the more the movies mix and form into a blue haze.  You know you experienced them and can access your thoughts and memories when it’s time to review, but then they go back into the swirl. Not Emilia Pérez, though.  And not when I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.  Emilia Pérez is a film that hits you like a ball of fire. It’s a fever dream laced with neon you’re happy to stumble through.  Blending melodic spectacle and gritty storytelling with bravura daring, calling to mind celebrated underground classics, it strikes an electrifying path toward the mainstream, it’s impossible to define but essential to understand.

When Bob Fosse brought Cabaret to screens in 1972, he redefined what musical cinema could achieve. There’s an echo of that and Moulin Rouge’s kaleidoscopic romance in Emilia Pérez, but writer/director Jacques Audiard has built something entirely new.  This film takes viewers across Mexico, where crime, punishment, and the pursuit of self-acceptance collide spectacularly. It’s a story that honors personal liberation, leaving you inspired and empowered by the cast of women carving out space for themselves in a world determined to label them.

A word of warning as we begin to go deeper.  While the filmmakers and Netflix haven’t been shy about revealing specific plot points of the film, I went in knowing next to nothing, and I think it made the first watch richer.  Having seen it a second time, I can see the value in knowing some details, so I’m taking a ‘happy medium’ approach that will preserve some, but not all, of the turns you can expect to find in Emilia Pérez.

Set against Mexico’s pulsating underworld, this Cannes Jury Prize winner follows brilliant yet unfulfilled attorney Rita Mora (Zoe Saldaña, Out of the Furnace), whose life dramatically shifts upon meeting an influential cartel figure who will become known as Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón). What begins as a request for legal assistance evolves into an extraordinary journey of gritty elegance. Both search for authentic joy while navigating the treacherous waters their lives have taken up until their paths cross.

Emilia’s struggle to embrace her identity and Rita’s professional and personal constraints open the door for Selena Gomez (Hotel Transylvania) and Adriana Paz (Spectre) to complete the ensemble. Each brings vibrancy and restless energy that add depth to the narrative and illustrate the courage required to truly live. The result is an epic act of reinvention with powerful emotional stakes relayed through an often exhilarating score and sharp dialogue. 

The powerhouse cast delivers revelatory performances, with Saldaña commanding the screen with career-best work, bringing a fierce yet vulnerable intelligence to Rita. Her chemistry with Gascón crackles with electricity – their scenes frequently pulse with an unspoken understanding and growing trust. Gascón’s performance is an honest-to-goodness tour de force, anchoring the film with profound humanity. Gomez is a huge surprise, bringing a primary scream of emotional depth, while Paz (the least talked about star of the film) steals every moment she inhabits as a woman who enters Emilia’s orbit late in the game but who unlocks possibilities Emilia never considered possible. Together, these performers join a perfectly balanced ensemble of actors, singers, and dancers that pass by, some for a brief moment, some longer.

Audiard, a French director whose credits include the equally challenging A Prophet and Rust and Bone, takes a surprising leap into musical cinema without losing his trademark intensity. Though his earlier works are known for their raw storytelling, Emilia Pérez shows how seamlessly he can translate that realism into fantastical moments of escapism set to music. The film’s songs, composed by Clément Ducol and Camille, combine whimsy with poignancy, transforming each number into a profoundly expressive layer of the characters’ evolution. Every sung scene feels earned, with the score balancing lighthearted playfulness (sometimes a bit too playful) and emotional nuance in a way that captures the audience’s heart without taking itself extremely seriously.

The film’s technical achievements are equally breathtaking. Virginie Montel’s costume designs, rich with cultural detail and character-specific flair, transform external appearances and allow them to evolve unexpectedly. Paul Guilhaume’s hypnotic, colorful cinematography contrasts the bright allure of nightclubs with the eerie serenity of Mexico’s desert landscapes, adding a visual force that mirrors the film’s narrative shifts in perspective. Further enhancing the fusion of reality and fantasy, Emmanuelle Duplay’s production design creates spaces that feel as dreamlike as they are grounded in the tangible, recognizable real world.

What truly makes Emilia Pérez exceptional is its refusal to shy away from the messiness of self and personal growth. Audiard has created, along with the four exquisite actresses who jointly won the Best Actress prize at Cannes, a film with a singular vision that champions bravery, celebrating the human impulse toward positive change and the resilience required to embrace one’s true nature.  In an industry that often leans toward safe narratives, Emilia Pérez bursts onto the scene as a bold and honestly quite necessary voice, making it a must-watch for anyone who values storytelling that pushes boundaries.