EMILIA PÉREZ

You've got to love a film that takes big swings.

Here the eponymous character is Manitas, the head of a Mexican drug cartel, who wishes to disappear and transition to a woman.  If that wasn't wild enough, the film, although not quite a musical, features many musical interludes in which the characters express their inner emotions or thoughts.

For the first half of the film I was fully on board, even for the song 'La Vaginoplastia'.

In the second half, four years after Manitas has faked his death and disappeared, things start promisingly.  Emilia wishes to be near her children and so she is introduced to Jessi (her wife in her previous life as Manitas) as a distant, wealthy cousin of Manitas who has volunteered to help raise the children.  

The person doing the introduction is the third protagonist, a lawyer Rita who assisted Manitas in his disappearance and transition. 

The relationship between Jessi and Emilia is potentially an explosive one - how will Jessi react when she discovers that her husband is very much alive, and is now Emilia?

Unfortunately the film switches focus at this point to the issue of the disappeared victims of drug cartels in Mexico.  

Thankfully though we do return to Jessi for a suitably melodramatic ending.

It's also a problem that the film can't decide who is the main protagonist.  Of the three I would have liked to have seen more time spent on developing Jessi's character.  She is played by Selena Gomez who is a revelation to me here, since prior to this I only knew her from 'Only Murders In The Building' where I don't feel she contributes much.

Curiously it is Zoe Saldaña as Rita who bagged an Oscar, not an especially deserved one I felt.

Although the film doesn't fully live up to the promise of the first half there's enough visual style and memorable moments to make it worth watching.  

RATING: ✓ If You've Nothing Better To Do