The Buzziest Movie at Cannes Is a Trans Cartel Musical Starring Selena Gomez

This year’s Cannes Film Festival breakout has everything: Cartel drama! A gender-confirmation surgery song! Selena Gomez waxing poetic about cunnilingus!

French director Jacques Audiard’s unapologetically batshit new film Emilia Pérez is making waves following its premiere, sparking buzz that it could take home the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ most prestigious prize. If the film won, it would be the first movie starring a trans lead to win the award and join a small handful of other queer winners throughout the festival’s 78-year history, following Titane and Blue Is The Warmest Color.

Emilia Pérez follows its eponymous cartel boss (played by trans Spanish actress and telenovela star Karla Sofía Gascón) as she recruits burnt-out Mexico City lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) to help her receive gender-affirming surgery and start a new, crime-free life. However, things grow more complicated when Emilia arranges to reunite with her estranged wife (Gomez) and their children by posing as a long-lost aunt. But that’s not even all: In the now-iconic words of Patti LuPone, “It’s a musical!”

According to Variety, Emilia Pérez received a nine-minute standing ovation at its premiere, marking the longest ovation of the 2024 festival thus far. Judging from initial reviews, the general consensus seems to be that, for all intents and purposes, Emilia Pérez’s huge swings should not work: from its musical numbers to its genre-defying, grade-A melodrama. And yet somehow, per the critics able to get an early look, its nutso gambit ultimately comes together. At the time of writing, Emilia Pérez has an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 12 reviews. It’s also near the top of the prestigious Screen Daily Jury Grid, which gives a snapshot of critical opinion at the festival.

The more enthusiastic responses likened Emilia Pérez to Denis Villeneuve’s 2015 cartel drama Sicario — which memorably features Emily Blunt beautifully hyperventilating — but with a gonzo twist. Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri described it as “a cross between Mrs. Doubtfire and Sicario reimagined as a musical.” Calling Emilia Pérez “both exhilarating and exasperating,” Rolling Stone’s David Fear warned viewers that they might want to “preemptively wear a neckbrace” due to the film’s tonal shifts. But hey, big swings are par for the course for a director who previously gave us a romantic drama featuring Marion Cotillard being attacked by a killer whale!

Some critics predicted healthy dollops of discourse about Emilia Pérez’s handling of trans representation once the frenetic film escapes the festival circuit bubble, and IndieWire critic David Ehrlich, who admired the film but couldn’t recommend it, previewed what those criticisms might entail. Ehrlich lamented that Emilia Pérez lacked rich emotionality and also what he described as the crucial ingredient for a good movie musical: “actually good, memorable songs.” (Personally speaking, I’d argue that any musical that rhymes the words mammoplasty, vaginoplasty, and rhinoplasty is worthy of Oscar consideration. Move over, Billie Eilish!)

In addition to the Palme d’Or, Emilia Pérez is also eligible for the Queer Palm, a prize for selected LGBTQ+ films entered into the festival. If it won, the movie would follow in the footsteps of well-loved queer fare like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Carol, and Pride, as well as controversial winners like Lukas Dhont’s 2018 drama Girl. Coincidentally, Dhont is presiding over this year’s Queer Palm jury, so we’ll see!

Regardless of how the Cannes award race shakes out, this year’s festival offers no shortage of truly out-there cinema. There’s the highly anticipated Mad Max: Fury Road prequel Furiosa, which apparently rattled star Anya Taylor-Joy so badly that she vowed not to discuss it for another 20 years. If you’re more of a horror aficionado, might I interest you in the feminist body-swap flick The Substance, or Rumours, in which Cate Blanchett plays former German chancellor Angela Merkel escaping a horde of masturbating zombies? And of course, we can’t forget Francis Ford Coppola’s long-awaited passion project Megalopolis, in which your girlfriend Aubrey Plaza plays a femme fatale named Wow Platinum (like, for real).

With Emilia Pérez in the mix, it’s a good year to make Cannes weird and gay again!

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Originally Appeared on them.