Cannes has just premiered another bonkers film after Megalopolis (Picture: Shanna Besson)
Megalopolis may have been the talk of Cannes Film Festival and movie fans online for the past few days, but it’s already being overshadowed by a new experimental film.
Francis Ford Coppola’s wild $120,000,000 comeback movie shocked critics with its wide-ranging, bonkers nature and inclusion of everything from incest and alarming boners to a live actor on stage.
The polarising Megalopolis has been called everything from ‘bats**t’, incomprehensible and the worst film in cinemas to a masterpiece from the lauded director.
However, on Saturday another genre-bending and, at times, baffling film premiered at Cannes which is also in the official competition to scoop the prestigious Palme d’Or.
As well as scoring the longest standing ovation of the festival so far at a reported 11 minutes, Emilia Pérez is now considered the award front-runner.
But it’s also not your average cinemagoing experience with its unusual melding of genre and tone as a violent and bloody crime drama comedy musical – and yes, it really is all those things.
Francis Ford Coppola’s comeback movie sharply divided critics (Picture: American Zoetrope)
However, the genre-bending Emilia Pérez has been praised (Picture: Shanna Besson)
Dubbed ‘crazy’ and ‘exhilarating’ in its ‘bold swings’, the Spanish-language film also boasts an impressive cast with Selena Gomez, Avatar’s Zoe Saldana, Édgar Ramírez and Karla Sofía Gascón in the title role.
Written and directed by Jacques Audiard, it also tells one of the most unexpected stories from Cannes – and in a year that also features Kinds of Kindness, that’s saying something. Although one thing that film has in common with this one is fingers being chopped off in grotesque detail.
The musical crime drama comedy stars Selena Gomez and Zoe Saldana (Picture: Shanna Besson)
Emilia Pérez is set in Mexico and follows underpaid and overworked lawyer Rita (Saldana), who receives an unexpected offer. She is asked to help a feared cartel boss, Manitas Del Monte, retire from his business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamed of being.
What’s more, she must keep it secret from his unsuspecting and glamorous wife Jessi (Gomez) and their two young kids.
It tells the story of a fearsome cartel boss who undergoes gender-reaffirming surgery and goes into hiding (Picture: Shanna Besson)
When the now Emilia then wants her children back in her life, without giving up her secret, a whole lot of emotional and criminal complication ensues, against the backdrop of Mexico City’s many dangers.
Due to the personal nature of Emilia’s journey contrasting so much with her macho background – plus the film being a full-on musical, there are some quite bold juxtapositions.
This includes a chorus with the lyrics ‘Vaginoplasty! Rhinoplasty!’ as the doctor bursts into song mid-consultation, as you do.
Gomez, castmate Édgar Ramírez and Zoe Saldana at the premiere, where the movie received the longest standing ovation so far (Picture: LOIC VENANCE/AFP)
Outside of the songs, Gomez also utters the immortal line: ‘My p***y hurts just thinking about you.’
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Deadline has already dubbed Emilia Pérez ‘a winner’, while The Hollywood Reporter praised it as ‘fresh, full of vitality and affecting’ with ‘quietly soaring power’.
Meanwhile, The Telegraph’s four-star review called the ‘eccentric’ musical ‘so bonkers it works’.
Emilia Pérez premiered at Cannes Film Festival on May 18. It is yet to receive a UK release date.
