So, this is a musical about a trans cartel boss forsaking her old life and beginning anew, and Selena Gomez is in it too. What a strange and rewarding concoction. Not everything has been magically changed for the better, though. Emilia misses her wife, Jessi sharply played by Gomez , and their two young children. Emilia is now posing as a distant cousin of the crime lord, who is assumed dead. As disarmingly sweet as the film can be, Audiard is ever plucking a string of suspense in the background.
Emilia was, after all, quite a dangerous person in her previous life, and surrounded herself with dangerous people.
This could easily all go horribly wrong. Emilia becomes a champion of the missing, working with Rita to locate the remains of people who could very well have been killed by her own underlings. Her performance is intriguingly textured, at once hopeful and haunted.
Rita is one of a very few people who know who Emilia once was, which terrifies her. But she is also drawn to this wholly bettered person; she and Emilia become friends and allies, perhaps a testament to some wild cinematic version of restorative justice. And to sing and dance, of course. The actors gracefully maneuver the sing-speak of the film—dialogue turns to music with little warning, which makes it all seem more natural than if the characters stopped, cleared their throats, and then burst into song.
It is an ornate melodrama—full of fabulous costumes, dotted with winks of wry humor, beguilingly idiosyncratic. Audiard could have aimed for a bit more careful nuance there. But hopefully the film will thrill many others. Its heart is in the right place, as its style. As is Emilia herself, at long last. Project Is Here. Justin Baldoni vs. Beware the Serial Squatter of Point Dume. Every Steven Spielberg Movie , Ranked. Archive VF Shop Magazine.
