Review: In 'Emilia Prez,' a musical heightened by danger, passion pours out like a confession

A lawyer, a kingpin, and his wife walk into a musical, and “Emilia Pérez” is born, Frenchman Jacques Audiard’s full-bodied, colorful epic about transformation, redemption and finding one’s voice in a hard world.But also, because this is still an Audiard film, it’s about what we can never escape.Never one to ignore how rich the crime genre can be in girding his tales of pain and release (“A Prophet,” “Dheepan”), the writer-director has taken his biggest swing yet with “Emilia Pérez,” using its Mexican milieu of cartels and suffering as the basis for a full-throated Spanish-language sing-a-thon built around a gender re-assignment — one that effectively, if unwittingly, triggers a nation’s ache for change.

That’s a full plate for any filmmaker, even someone as experienced with interior turbulence as Audiard.Movies After the film’s bold, prize-winning debut at Cannes, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldaña come together to discuss their one-of-a-kind musical.Oct.

29, 2024But he’s also made one of his most satisfying movie movies to date by centering the experiences of three (and eventually four) fierce women, rather than his usual brooding men.Audiard pushes them all into a type of feverish, Almodovar-adjacent melodrama that suits his instinct for sensorial cinema.

It’s not surprising he understands the crazy tone-and-texture logic of a musical number, aided by editor Juliette Welfling’s rhythmic (but never overdone) cutting.First up in the scenario is Zoe Saldaña’s Rita, an overworked lawyer tired of wasting her talents on defending violent men, yet drawn to the proposition offered in private one night by fearsome cartel lord Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón): Help facilitate a secret transition surgery and the world will have one less bad guy and one more fulfilled woman.Two, ostensibly, if you count the payday that will allow Rita to move on from her job.

Then again, subtract one, if you consider Manitas’ unsus...