Jacques Audiard is vying for a second Palme d’Or, which is reaching out to him with “Emilia Perez”

The film “Emilia Perez” was widely applauded during its screening in Cannes, propelling Jacques Audiard among the great favorites of the Competition.

Palme d’Or with Dheepan in 2015, Jacques Audiard could well join the exclusive club of double winners of the highest award in world cinema, thanks to Emilia Perez.

The Cannes Film Festival loves musicals. The jury awarded its Grand Prize to Young ladies of Rochefort by Jacques Demy in 1967 (the Palme d’or did not yet exist) and his Palme d’or in Dancing in the Dark by Lars von Trier in 2000. Emilia Perez, with Zoe Saldana (Avatar), to the music of Clément Ducol and Camille, has all the assets to join them.

Jacques Audiard thrilled the Croisette with what some describe as a musical thriller. A carefully measured marriage, where the violence and the underworld environment in which he evolves, as well as the internal drama experienced by its main character, are counterbalanced, as if softened, by the music, the songs and their words.

Rita (Zoe Saldana) is a seasoned lawyer in a firm dedicated to laundering criminals. In search of a return to justice, she decides to help Manitas, the leader of a major underworld cartel, hang up his gloves. The latter has been hatching a plan for years: to become the woman he always was deep inside, and to pass off the man he was as dead.

Emilia Perez, the name Manitas takes once his transformation is complete, and which gives its title to the film, is touched by grace. With the help of a musical comedy, Jacques Audiard uses sequenced shots and editing that energize his story with balance. The songs do not serve the action, but reflect the interiority of the characters, their feelings.

If we are carried away by the story, and a flawless interpretation, Emilia Perez premium for its staging. It is almost choreographic, as the rhythm is lively and the source of a unifying lyricism, but without pathos. It serves the meaning. Audiard favors empathy towards his character, the torments that inhabit him, and the redemption that he achieves. This perfect match brings a work which, in this middle of the festival, is placed on the starting blocks for the Palme, or the Director’s Prize. But the competition is already tough.



Gender : Drama / Musical comedy
Director : Jacques Audiard
Actors: Zoe Saldana, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, Édgar Ramírez, Stéphane Ly-Cuong, James Gerard
Country : France / Mexico / United States
Duration : 2h10
Exit : August 28 2024
Distributer : Pathé
Synopsis: Overqualified and overexploited, Rita uses her talents as a lawyer in the service of a large firm more inclined to launder criminals than to serve justice. But an unexpected exit door opens to her, helping the cartel leader Manitas to get out of business and carry out the plan he has been secretly refining for years: finally becoming the woman he always dreamed of being. .