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Jacques Audiard's Emilia Perez unfolds like a fever dream at the crossroads of two seemingly incompatible cinematic traditions. On one side, the gritty, blood-soaked terrain of cartel violence; on the other, the soaring, larger-than-life world of musical theater. It's an audacious creative gamble-a director known for his bruising realism (A Prophet, Rust and Bone) stepping onto the precarious tightrope of genre fusion. The result is a film that sings in moments but often staggers under the weight of its own ambition, leaving the viewer to wonder if the musical form truly elevates the story it seeks to tell or merely embellishes it with spectacle.

The narrative is one of transformation and self-assertion. Emilia (played by Karla Sofia Gascón in a performance of remarkable candor), once Emilio, is a feared lawyer for a Mexican drug cartel who decides, after years of repression, to transition and escape the shadow of her violent past. Audiard uses music as an emotional gateway into this journey, allowing Emilia's deepest fears, desires, and triumphs to pour out through song. In theory, it's a fitting choice: musicals thrive on characters expressing what words alone cannot contain. Yet, in execution, the film stumbles over its own tonal contradictions, raising questions about whether the heightened theatricality serves Emilia's story or distracts from its emotional weight.

The film's opening sequence is a declaration of intent. In an underworld hideout shrouded in shadow and menace, Emilia-still living as Emilio-bursts into a song of longing and entrapment. The contrast is jarring: the brutality of the cartel's world collides with the vulnerability of a voice cutting through the darkness. It's a bold statement, signaling that this is not a story confined to the grim realism of genre convention. Yet the dissonance between the two modes-cinema vérité grit and Broadway bravado-feels less like harmony and more like a collision. The film struggles to reconcile these parallel languages, leaving the viewer unmoored.

Much of this tension lies in the construction of the musical pieces themselves. Scored by Alexandre Desplat, with contributions from Latin American composers and lyricists, the songs range from intimate ballads to bombastic ensemble numbers, drawing on mariachi-inspired rhythms, pop-infused melodies, and Broadway-style crescendos. On their own, several of these pieces are memorable, even stirring. A standout is Emilia's solo, performed in front of a mirror as she takes the first steps toward embracing her identity-her voice a mixture of defiance and trembling vulnerability. In that moment, the music feels like an extension of her soul, a raw and direct connection to her inner life.

However, these moments of synergy are undercut by a broader inconsistency in how the musical elements are integrated into the narrative. Too often, the songs feel like interruptions rather than continuations of the story. A nightclub duet between Emilia and María (Selena Gomez), for instance, is visually dazzling but narratively hollow, doing little to propel the plot or deepen the characters' relationships. Similarly, some of the ensemble numbers, while choreographically ambitious, feel disconnected from the personal stakes of Emilia's journey, as though they were designed more for their visual impact than their emotional resonance.

This unevenness extends to the performances. Gascón is the film's magnetic center, her voice carrying the weight of years of repression and the exhilaration of self-discovery. She moves seamlessly between the rawness of Emilia's struggles and the heightened theatricality of the musical form, grounding even the film's most flamboyant sequences in emotional authenticity. In contrast, her co-stars struggle to find the same balance. Selena Gomez, as pop star María, brings charisma to the screen but lacks the vocal range and narrative depth to fully inhabit her musical moments. Zoe Saldaña, as Ana-an initially skeptical lawyer who becomes Emilia's confidante-delivers a nuanced dramatic performance, but her role in the musical numbers feels restrained, as though she is holding back from fully embracing the film's theatricality.

A deeper issue lies in the film's structure. Musicals traditionally use songs to deepen character arcs and drive the narrative forward, but in Emilia Perez, the musical numbers often feel superimposed onto the story rather than emerging organically from it. This lack of cohesion is particularly apparent in the film's middle section, where the pacing becomes sluggish, weighed down by songs that linger too long without advancing the plot. Audiard's direction seems caught between his instinct for naturalistic storytelling and his desire to embrace the heightened reality of the musical form, resulting in a film that feels neither fully immersive nor entirely grounded.

Visually, Emilia Perez amplifies the theatricality of its musical sequences with bold, saturated colors and dynamic camera movements, courtesy of cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine. These scenes pulse with energy, drawing on the vibrant aesthetics of Latin American culture and blending them with the visual language of classic Hollywood musicals. Yet, this visual exuberance often clashes with the muted, shadowy palette of the film's non-musical scenes, creating a stylistic inconsistency that mirrors the tonal dissonance of the narrative.

Despite its flaws, Emilia Perez does achieve moments of genuine poignancy, particularly in its exploration of Emilia's transition. The film's use of music to externalize her inner turmoil and triumphs offers a level of emotional immediacy that dialogue alone could not achieve. At its best, the musical form becomes a vehicle for self-expression, mirroring Emilia's journey to break free from societal constraints and claim her identity on her own terms.

Yet, these moments of brilliance only highlight the film's missed opportunities. The musical form has the potential to elevate the story, to take the audience deeper into Emilia's emotional world, but *Emilia Perez* stops short of fully realizing this potential. Instead, it often feels as though the music is working in parallel to the narrative rather than in concert with it, resulting in a film that is compelling in parts but frustratingly uneven as a whole.

What lingers after the credits roll is less a cohesive story than a series of impressions: the raw power of Gascón's performance, the surreal beauty of certain musical sequences, the film's willingness to take risks even when those risks don't always pay off. Emilia Perez is a film that defies easy categorization, a bold experiment that refuses to conform to the expectations of either the crime drama or the musical. Its flaws are undeniable, but they are the kind of flaws that come from reaching for something beyond the ordinary.

For all its imperfections, Emilia Perez carves out a space for itself in the cinematic landscape, offering a vision that is as messy and contradictory as the act of transformation itself. It's a film that asks its audience to embrace its inconsistencies, to see beauty in its cacophony. Whether one views it as a flawed masterpiece or a misstep with flashes of brilliance, it is a work that insists on being grappled with, a testament to the power of cinema to push boundaries and reimagine what stories-and genres-can be.

The Room Next Door feels like Pedro Almodóvar stepping into uncharted territory. It's his first English-language film, and while it's undeniably beautiful, it left me wishing for a bit more substance beneath the surface. The story focuses on Martha, a war photographer facing terminal cancer, and Ingrid, a novelist whose friendship with Martha has grown distant. Almodóvar brings his signature style-bold colors, symbolic spaces, and carefully crafted visuals-but somehow, the emotional depth he's known for doesn't quite land.

Color plays a huge role here, especially red. Almodóvar uses it as a recurring theme-it's in Martha's outfits, Ingrid's scattered notes, and the carefully chosen decor of the house where most of the story unfolds. Normally, his use of red bursts with life and passion (Volver, anyone?), but here it feels muted. Instead of adding emotional weight to Martha's struggles with agency and mortality, it seems more decorative than symbolic, like it's there to remind us we're watching an Almodóvar film but not much else.

The house, though, is stunning. It's this sleek, modernist marvel of icy blues and greys, with pops of red, yellow, and green breaking through the sterile perfection. It's a powerful metaphor for Martha and Ingrid's fragile connection-a place that feels both protective and isolating. But as much as I loved how the house looked, I kept waiting for it to feel like a real part of the story. It's a backdrop with so much potential, but its symbolism doesn't dig deep enough to make the emotional stakes feel real.

Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore are, unsurprisingly, excellent. Swinton gives Martha a quiet fierceness, and Moore portrays Ingrid with a mix of regret and tenderness. But the dialogue between them sometimes falls flat-it's too heavy on exposition and not raw enough to pull you in. Their interactions often feel more like scripted exchanges than heartfelt conversations, which makes it harder to connect with their journey.

Ultimately, The Room Next Door is a feast for the eyes, but its heart doesn't quite match its visual brilliance. It's beautiful, yes, but it feels like it's searching for the emotional depth that made Almodóvar's earlier films so unforgettable. I respect the ambition, but as the credits rolled, I couldn't help but miss the vibrant storytelling of his past works.