‘Emilia Pérez’: Read The Screenplay (In Spanish And English) For Jacques Audiard’s Audacious Musical Melodrama
Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the scripts behind the year’s most talked-about movies continues with Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize winner Emilia Pérez. The Spanish-language Netflix musical drama, written and directed by Frenchman Jacques Audiard, also scored the Cannes Best Actress Prize for its stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Salda?a, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz, a first for an ensemble at the festival.
The film became France’s submission to the International Feature Oscar race and had a qualifying run in theaters before being released on Netflix on November 13.
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Against a backdrop of original songs, dance and experimental visuals, the film follows four women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. Cartel leader Emilia (Gascón) enlists Rita (Salda?a), an unappreciated lawyer, to help fake her death so that she can finally live authentically as her true self.
Under the pretense of protecting her family, Emilia sends her wife, Jessi (Gomez), and their children to Switzerland. Later, Jessie returns to Mexico with an invite from her deceased partner’s cousin to live with her, unaware of the secret Emilia is harboring. However, when Jessi encounters Gustavo Brun (Edgar Ramírez), Emilia’s carefully constructed new life unravels. A spiral of rage and obsession threatens to expose her past and force her to confront the person she once was.
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Audiard found inspiration for the script six years ago, reading Boris Razon’s novel écoute. “Halfway through the book, a transgender Mexican drug dealer comes along who wishes to have surgery,” he said. “As the drug dealer wasn’t that developed over the following chapters, I decided to start my story with that character.”
After writing the treatment for the film, Audiard realized along the way that the film was closer to an opera libretto than a film script as there were few sets, and the characters were archetypal.
“I don’t like to define a film by its genre. I think most of my work revolves around this principle,” he said. “When the film was finished, we tried to define it as a musical melodrama, because I didn’t want the film to be defined only as a musical or a thriller. For me, it’s also a film inspired by telenovelas, with kind of ironic comic moments. I guess you could say it’s also a musical crime drama.”
The film’s tragic story is elevated by its mesmerizing original musical numbers, composed by Camille and Clément Ducol. The cast’s performances draw the audience into a world of song and dance that elevates this groundbreaking Spanish-language fever dream to life.
Check out the scripts below, in both Spanish and English.
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