"Emilia Pérez" review — Queer cartel musical reaches for the stars
“Here I am.” The opening musical number of Jacques Audiard’s eccentric Emilia Pérez is a murmur, more than an explosive, welcome-to-the-show moment. The quickly-uttered, staccato lyrics begin with lawyer Rita Moro Castro’s defence of a man she knows is guilty. As she writes her expertly penned closing argument, which will be spoken by her incompetent senior lawyer the next morning, her pleas for a man riddled with sin begin to be taken up by the chorus around her, building into an intricately choreographed dance. But the energy just remains a simmer, water ready to boil, never reaching its climax. The lawyer, undervalued by her colleagues and defending tabloid-attracting criminals, finds herself distinctly disillusioned with her field of work. She’s good at what she does. Within a few minutes, we see her client walk out of the courthouse scott-free. Rita, as we’ll get to know her, is certainly a woman with a sense of right and wrong, but her morals are certainly more pliable than she
