Reviews for Emilia Pérez, the latest Selena Gomez movie, are significantly divided following the film’s premiere on Netflix.
The release from filmmaker Jacques Audiard is set around Mexico City, and centers around topics such as family, ambition, possibility of change, cartels, human disappearances, gender-affirmation, money and corruption.
Multiple users took to Twitter/X with comments on the musical/melodrama/crime-thriller, some gushing over the film’s concepts and performances.
One user called it the ‘movie of the year’ while another called it ‘a true spectacle in every sense’ for the better.
‘Emilia Pérez is a symphony of emotions, a wildly-original and poignant musical that explores complex and provocative ideas through powerful storytelling,’ the user said.
Another user said that Audiard ‘handled beautifully’ the movie’s ‘themes of identity and transformation,’ describing it as ‘a unique blend of comedy, crime, and musical elements that worked together in the most unexpected ways.’
One user said that the movie would buck social media trends and land with critics this award season.
‘Film Twitter is gonna’ do everything in their power to villify EMILIA PEREZ and keep it from the Best Picture conversation, but it’ll be all for naught,’ said the user. ‘Every year, we get at least 1 contender who has enough passion and industry love to overcome backlash. We found this year’s.’
To the contrary, some people were critical of the film and Gomez’s performance, specifically.
‘After seeing Emilia Perez, Selena was easily the worst part,’ one user said, while another declared that ‘words cannot describe how utterly awful Emilia Perez.’
Said another user, ‘All these videos I’m seeing from Emilia Perez… this can’t be the same movie critics have been raving about?’
One said, ‘Every clip of Emilia Perez on the timeline is worse than the previous one there’s no way this movie is critically acclaimed.’
One user said that fandoms not supportive of Gomez – those of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber and fellow superstar Ariana Grande – were a driving force behind chunks of negative reviews toward the singer-actress and her latest project.
‘The Emilia Perez metacritic audience score went from a 8.5 to a 6.0 in one day and I wonder which fanbase is behind these negative reviews,’ one user.
Another user said that ‘the only people bashing Emilia Perez have something in common: they dislike Selena Gomez. So i ain’t bothering myself to take them seriously lmfao.
‘Critics and EXPERTS WITH EXPERTISE acclaimed both the movie and the performances, that’s what matters.’
The storyline of the film centers around a cartel boss named Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón) who has a smart, but undervalued lawyer named Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldaña) kidnapped.
Manitas wants gender confirmation surgery, and for Rita to handle the logistics: Hiring the discreet surgeon, faking Manitas’ death and transporting the wife, Jessi (Gomez) and two kids to their new home in Switzerland; in return, Rita will get rich.
Four years later, Rita’s gotten a glow up. Gone are her bush eyebrows and frumpy suit and she´s leading a cosmopolitan life in London, something that we get to see all too briefly.
Rita meets another woman who´s gone through a major transformation, Emilia Pérez (Gascón).
Audiard plays briefly with the idea that Rita assumes Emilia is there to kill her, to rid the world of any remaining evidence of those who know what happened.
In actuality, she just misses her kids and wants them back in Mexico to live with her. It´s up to Rita to get them to move once more, in with Emilia, posing as an aunt they’ve never met before.
