“Emilia Pérez,” the movie about a transgender Mexican cartel leader who reconciles with her past, enters the Academy Awards on Sunday with 13 nominations, the most of any film this year. It is also the most nods ever for any non-English language film. The film has already won several accolades, including best comedy or musical at the Golden Globe Awards.
In Mexico, the reception has been exactly the opposite.
It has been widely criticized for its depiction of the country, the minimization of the cartel violence that has ravaged so many and the few Mexicans involved in its production.
Comments about Spanish by its French writer-director, Jacques Audiard, which some saw as denigrating the language, and by its lead, Karla Sofía Gascón, about Islam and George Floyd, stoked the discontent in Mexico and made matters worse.
“Emilia Pérez” wasn’t released in Mexican theaters until Jan. 23 — five months after its debut in France and two months after its U.S. release. In Mexico, theaters showing the film have been largely empty. Some unhappy moviegoers have even demanded refunds.
An online Mexican short film parodying the French roots of “Emilia Pérez,” on the other hand, was a hit. “Emilia Pérez” has been the fodder of many social media memes. And it has been denounced by the families of victims of violence in Mexico.
“It has become a real disaster,” said Francisco Peredo Castro, a film expert and a history and communications professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
A main critique of “Emilia Pérez” is that it trivializes Mexico’s ongoing struggle with organized crime. There have been more than 460,000 homicides since 2006, when the president then declared war on the cartels. The movie is a musical, with glitzy song-and-dance numbers, including lyrics about bodies disposed of in acid.
“We should keep things in perspective and say, ‘We’re not going to sing or dance about this subject,’” said Artemisa Belmonte, 41, who became an activist after her mother, three uncles and a cousin disappeared in 2011 in Chihuahua state, a region hit hard by the drug war. More than 100,000 people have vanished in Mexico since 2006, according to government data.
Ms. Belmonte wondered if Hollywood or the European cinema industry would dare to make musicals about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
During a news conference before the film’s release in Mexico, Mr. Audiard said he apologized if he handled a delicate subject “too lightly.” In a different interview, he said that “cinema doesn’t provide answers; it only asks questions, but maybe the questions in ‘Emilia Pérez’ are incorrect.” (He has also said that he didn’t study Mexico much before making the film.)
Netflix, which bought the U.S. distribution rights for “Emilia Pérez” at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, declined to comment. It recently announced a $1 billion investment to produce series and films in Mexico over the next four years.
David Chelminsky, the director of Zima Entertainment, which distributed the film in Mexico, said in an interview that he had never had a film in his career generate such hatred in the country.
“All criticism is valid, but there was a very virulent, very aggressive criticism that didn’t leave room for other opinions,” he said. “So people who liked the film or who wanted to see it preferred to stay a little bit on the sidelines because there were constant attacks against anyone who came out to say, ‘I liked it.’”
He suggested there were tinges of xenophobia and transphobia in some critiques.
Not all Mexicans have condemned the movie. Guillermo del Toro, a three-time Oscar winner, said that Mr. Audiard was “one of the most amazing filmmakers alive” and that his view of Mexico was “hypnotic and beautiful.” Elisa Miller, another acclaimed Mexican filmmaker, said it was “nice” to serve as an adviser on Mexican matters for Mr. Audiard.
After a recent showing at a Mexico City theater, Alberto Muñoz, 37, a visual designer, said he understood the concerns about the movie but also appreciated its technical qualities. “It’s an entertaining movie,” he said.
But Ms. Belmonte, whose relatives disappeared in Chihuahua, said that after streaming the film while in California for Christmas, she was so troubled by it that she created an online petition in January calling for a halt on awards and its release in Mexico.
“The movie has been successful with people who have not experienced disappearances,” Ms. Belmonte said.
While she understood Mr. Audiard’s defense that the film is fiction, Ms. Belmonte was also disturbed at the way the Emilia Pérez character shifted from being a notorious cartel leader to a champion of the disappeared.
Critics have also taken issue with the lack of Mexican talent in front and behind the camera. “Emilia Pérez” was largely shot on French soundstages because, Mr. Audiard said, he preferred the controlled environment.
Adriana Paz is the only Mexican performer who plays a leading character. Mexicans felt slighted when the film’s casting director said that while crew members searched for actors in Mexico and other Latin American countries, they decided to go with the best options, even if they were not Mexican.
Mr. Audiard has said that they wanted bigger-name stars in order to be able to finance the film.
Mexicans have also pointed to the accents of the lead actresses: Zoe Saldaña, an American of Dominican descent who has won awards for her performance and is up for an Oscar for best supporting actress; Ms. Gascón, who is from Spain and has lived and acted in Mexico; and Selena Gomez, an American of Mexican descent who worked to regain her Spanish fluency for the film. (Ms. Gascón is the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for an Oscar.)
After Eugenio Derbez, a well-known Mexican actor and filmmaker, called Ms. Gomez’s pronunciation “indefensible,” she apologized, saying “I did the best I could with the time I was given.”
In Mexico City, some audience members laughed during a recent screening when the Ms. Saldaña and Ms. Gascón’s characters used Mexican colloquialisms.
“The dialogues are completely inorganic — what the characters are saying doesn’t make sense,” said Héctor Guillén, 26, a Mexican screenwriter and producer. (Ms. Gascón has said she is “more Mexican than cactus.”)
Given the controversy surrounding the movie, he said, “in a few years this movie will be one of the biggest embarrassments of European film.”
But Mr. Peredo Castro, the professor, questioned why the backlash against “Emilia Pérez” was so strong, arguing that there were 120 years’ worth of depictions of Mexicans in “insensitive” and “insulting” ways.
He pointed not only to “greaser” films of the early 1900s that featured Mexicans as villains, but recent music genres, telenovelas and shows (scripted and reality) that glorified narco-trafficking. And he said the bigger American and European film industries have frequently looked at Mexico through the lens of misery.
Mr. Peredo Castro said “Emilia Pérez” had been released at a time of upheaval under President Trump, who has repeatedly targeted the United States’ biggest trading partner over fentanyl and migration. The criticisms, he said, have “greatly exacerbated the sensitivity” of Mexico at being the center of attention for violence, drugs and corruption.
In response to “Emilia Pérez,” Camila Aurora, a Mexican trans content creator, made the short film parody, “Johanne Sacreblu.” Filmed in the streets of Mexico City with Mexican performers using stilted French accents and stereotypical attire, it has gained 3.2 million views on YouTube in a month and was released in some theaters.
“Emilia Pérez,” on the other hand, has drawn tepid audience numbers. Since its debut in Mexico and through last weekend, it has made $832,000 with about 210,000 tickets sold, according to figures from the Mexican National Chamber of the Film Industry.
In comparison, “Captain America: Brave New World,” which came out three weeks later, sold 2.9 million tickets through last weekend.
On Sunday, Ms. Belmonte, who created the online petition against the film, said she had no plans to watch the Oscars, even though she considers it her Super Bowl, a must-see annual event. This time, she said, “I’ve lost the desire.”