Jacques Audiard has been directing films for 30 years, having some of his most success recently with awards-friendly fare such as The Beat That My Heart Skipped, A Prophet and Rust and Bone. His newest film, the genre defying mind trip Emilia Pèrez, was the toast of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, with Audiard winning the Jury Prize. The Best Actress award was also given to stars Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and, for the first time this has ever been won by a trans actor, to Karla Sofía Gascón, who plays the titular role. So, I had some expectations going into my screening of Emilia Pèrez the other night, given all this hype. Having now seen it, I feel like I’m right to worry this will be the kind of festival darling that will fall flat once a general audience sees it.

Emilia Pèrez follows Rita (Saldaña), a lawyer in Mexico who isn’t finding a lot to enjoy in her work these days. She’s under appreciated by the people in charge, she’s overwhelmed with the work and feels as if life is passing her by. She’s hired by the mysterious cartel kingpin Juan ‘Manitas’ Del Monte (Gascòn) who wants her to sequester his wife (Gomez) and children somewhere where they’ll be safe while he secretly undergoes gender reassignment surgery, to fulfill his lifelong desire to become a woman. 

Cut to some years later, Rita is enjoying a more financially stable life in London. At a dinner party, she has a chance encounter with Del Monte, now living as Emilia Pèrez. Emilia asks Rita to help her reunite with her children, although she has been presumed dead this entire time. They all gather in the same house, Emilia taking on the persona of Juan’s long-lost sister whom they’ve never met. Emilia also decides to start a business where the families of missing people tied to cartel violence in Mexico can find out what happened to their missing loved ones. Complications ensue.

Emilia Pèrez is about ten different movies at once, and I’m unsure any of them really work together as a whole. It’s a crime drama, it’s a farcical black comedy, it’s a coming of age story, it’s a full on musical with big set pieces and choreography, it’s a trans story, it’s a story about redemption, it’s an ode to the epidemic of missing people tied to organized crime in Mexico, it’s a story about multiple women dealing with the concept of identity, and the problem is none of these movies get the time to feel like their own movie. There is such tonal whiplash happening here throughout, that you never feel like you get to know any of these characters particularly well, and as a result, when Auidard wants you to feel big things in the end and have this true emotional response, you kind of end up feeling nothing. 

Zoe Saldaña is doing the best work of her career, full stop. This role demands so much of her, she’s singing in multiple languages, dancing and playing some big, emotional moments. However, her character is kind of just along for this ride and she rarely has any kind of agency of her own. But Saldaña, finally given a role where she is not blue or green in a big-budget blockbuster, reminds the viewer what she can give to a role that is giving her so little. I can definitely imagine a world where she walks away from this project with some nominations, at the very least.

Karla Sofía Gascón’s performance was all I heard about when people first saw this film. And the fact that she’s the first trans performer who has been awarded an acting prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is a remarkable achievement. However, it also doesn’t feel like she has a lot to really do? Maybe it’s the dichotomy of her playing both versions of this character, that could not have less in common. But also, the Emilia Pèrez character is kind of an awful human being who is incredibly selfish and seemingly uncaring toward all the lives around her that she’s ruined. And I feel like this kind of character depiction could be bad for trans people in general. Emilia is undeniably a bad person, but we’re supposed to feel great empathy for her by the end and I don’t think the movie ever earns this.

And that brings me to Selena Gomez, the very popular musician/sometimes actress who will be the reason most audiences click on this movie when it arrives on Netflix. I find Gomez to be an utter delight in her work on Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, she’s displayed some great comedic and dramatic chops, and I’ve enjoyed what she’s brought to that show. However, Gomez seems awfully miscast here. She’s just never believable as the put-upon wife of a drug kingpin. There’s a kind of Jennifer Lawrence in American Hustle thing happening, where the actress is just too young for this kind of part, and maybe she’ll grow into roles like this eventually, but I don’t think we’re there yet. This is kind of a terrible performance, but I don’t think it’s Gomez’s fault. This script is certainly not doing her any favors.

As a musical, I’m impressed by the creativity of the integration of these songs, however I also don’t feel like the film gives us a single memorable song. There are musical moments you’ll remember, some of the staging is very innovative, but I did not leave humming any particular song, or wanting to add the soundtrack to my Apple Music. Significant chunks of the film without a song will pass, and then it feels jarring when someone starts singing again, because the movie seemingly forgot it also had to be a musical all the way through. I definitely don’t see any version of this going to Broadway.

I always admire it when a filmmaker is taking a big swing, and trying to do something brazenly original. But that’s all dependent on if the execution of said original idea works. And I feel like everything in Emilia Pèrez is so half realized and so jarring from a tonal perspective, that it was never clear to me why I should care about any of these people, and I left the film having felt nothing. Once this releases on Netflix, I feel like a lot of audiences are going to check it out because of someone in the cast, or because of the awards campaign mounted around this film, but I think people might have a bit of a hard time with it. I’d recommend giving it a whirl when it drops on Netflix, just because it’s definitely not like anything you’ve seen this year, and some of the performances are very good. But maybe just don’t expect to take anything away from it emotionally.

Emilia Pèrez is now playing in theaters in limited release. It will be available to stream globally on Netflix November 13th.