Emilia Pérez Beat Sheet Analysis
Why We Chose to Do a Save a Cat! Beat Sheet Analysis of Emilia Pérez
To this date, Emilia Pérez has garnered 223 nominations and 84 wins!
Its 13 Oscar® nominations include Best Motion Picture of the Year, Best International Feature Film, Best Achievement in Directing (Jacques Audiard), Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Karla Sofía Gascón), Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role (Zoë Saldaña), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius, Nicolas Livecchi).
Among its wins are 3 at the Cannes Film Festival: the Jury Prize for Jacques Audiard; Best Actress Ensemble Cast for Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoë Saldaña, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz; and Best Composer for Camille and Clément Ducol.
Emilia Pérez won 4 Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy;
Emilia Pérez is also one of the 10 Movies of the Year from the American Film Institute.
Emilia Pérez
Written by: Jacques Audiard; scenario collaboration: Thomas Bidegain; collaboration: Léa Mysius & Nicolas Livecchi
Based on: the novel Écoute by Boris Razon
Directed by: Jacques Audiard
Music and Lyrics by: Clément Ducol and Camille
Genre: Golden Fleece – Buddy Fleece
The 3 elements of a GOLDEN FLEECE story are:
1) A road spanning oceans, time—or across the street—so long as it demarcates growth. It often includes a “Road Apple” that stops the trip cold.
2) A team or a buddy the hero needs to be guided along the way. Usually, it’s those who represent the things the hero doesn’t have: skill, experience, or attitude.
3) A prize that’s sought and is something primal: going home, securing a treasure, or re-gaining a birthright.
Golden Fleece – Buddy Fleece Cousins: A Real Pain, Little Miss Sunshine; Y Tu Mamá También; Motorcycle Diaries; L’Aventura; On the Road; Easy Rider; Stranger Than Paradise; Thelma & Louise; Finding Nemo; National Lampoon’s Vacation; One Piece Pilot (TV); Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Save the Cat! Beat Sheet Analysis for Emilia Pérez
Opening Image
Rita Mora Castro (Zoë Saldaña) stares out the window as a junk collector passes by, a plaintive child’s voice calling out over the loudspeaker, “Refrigerators, stoves, washing machines, or anything old you’re selling…” We track from her sad face to a photograph of Rita graduating from law school with a huge, hopeful smile, then to crime scene photographs of a blood-spattered shoe and a woman’s body.
The tone is set for a crime drama with social commentary and not necessarily for a musical with plenty of dark comedy and a near-telenovela level of melodrama, but part of the fun (or problem, according to some critics) of Emilia Pérez is its genre-bending… a true “throw the fideo at the wall and see what sticks” kind of film.
Set-Up
In her thesis world, Rita is a defense attorney writing the closing argument for her mediocre boss as they defend a rich and prominent media figure whose wife has died. Although it is obviously murder, Rita’s boss insists that Rita argue for a suicide.
Frustrated and disillusioned by the corruption in her profession, trying to ignore all the things that need fixing in her life, Rita imagines writing her speech while singing and dancing with the street people in Mexico City.
Her team wins an acquittal, but Rita is joyless; she had to “eat shit” for the victory.
Theme Stated
In the opening song, “Rising and Falling,” Rita sings, “When we speak of violence, let’s speak of compassion, let’s speak of our dead, let’s speak of our shadows.” The women at the center of Emilia Pérez will make valiant attempts to rise above their circumstances, but the shadows of violence and the ghosts of their pasts threaten even their most triumphant moments—the primal prize they seek always seems just out of reach.
Catalyst
Rita receives a mysterious phone call from a whispering stranger who compliments her legal skills and says, “Do you want to become rich?” If so, she should meet him at the newsstand in 10 minutes.
Debate
Rita musically bitches about how she is poor as dirt, used by the men in her profession, and taunted about not having a husband and children, so she’s tempted by this bizarre offer (especially after a group of cleaning ladies sing “what have you got to lose?”). She goes to the meeting spot, where she is kidnapped and driven to an undisclosed location.
The terrified Rita is taken to meet the infamous Juan “Manitas” del Monte (the wonderful Karla Sofía Gascón, playing both Manitas and Emilia Pérez), a notorious drug kingpin living in his own painful thesis world, who has a shocking and lucrative proposal for Rita: that she help him find a doctor willing to perform gender-affirming surgery and then find him a place to disappear where he can live a new life as a woman. Rita is understandably gobsmacked, but accepts, recognizing that she really has no choice.
She begins her search in a shiny clinic in Bangkok, where the patients perkily sing “vaginoplasty, penoplasty, laryngoplasty, mammoplasty,” but opts for a rather jaded physician in Tel Aviv, using her lawyer skills to get him to consider doing the procedure. Dr. Wasserman (Mark Ivanir) agrees to meet Manitas, who tells gruesome tales of how he’s had to be the cruelest of all the cartel leaders to hide who he felt he was inside.
Manitas grieves at the thought of having to leave his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and his two young sons behind, but his suffering has caused him to consider suicide many times; for him, stasis = death is real and imminent.
Wasserman agrees to perform the surgery and Rita stages a fake death in the media for Manitas. She also moves a distraught Jessi and her children to Switzerland, but out of sight is not out of mind—this is not the last we will see of this family.
Break into Two
Rita sobs and laughs as she’s finally accomplished something somewhat meaningful—and made a mint doing it. The former Manitas dons a bra and practices her new name, “Emilia Pérez. Emilia Pérez…”
Fun and Games
Four years later, Rita and Emilia are living in their upside-down worlds, the antithesis of what they’ve known, but neither of them has wholly escaped their past. At a dinner in London, an attractive woman engages Rita in conversation and within minutes, Rita greets the reentry of Emilia into her life with a heartfelt “shit.”
She knows Emilia is “not there by chance” and must want to get rid of the only living witness to her transition, but Emilia has a far different plan in mind; she misses her children terribly and wants Rita to move Jessi and the kids back to Mexico where she will pose as Manitas’s distant cousin and their new benefactress.
As always, Rita knows she cannot refuse; as long as Emilia is living, she will be tied to her.
Jessi is furious at having her life upended again and is understandably freaked out when “Auntie Emilia” greets her children with tears and an uncomfortable amount of kissing. The only upside to her misery is that she can now resume an affair she’d had with Gustavo Brun (Édgar Ramírez) in the last years of her marriage.
As Rita and Emilia adjust back to life in Mexico, a chance meeting with a grieving mother carrying a photo of her missing son changes everything. Emilia is overwhelmed with remorse for her violent past and grieves for the many victims in her country.
B Story
Emilia’s (and to a lesser extent, Rita’s) relationship with Jessi Del Monte will be a thorn in the side of Emilia’s life change, a living representation of the futility of trying to unknot the ties that bind.
Midpoint
Emilia and Rita establish a nonprofit, La Lucecita (The Little Light), to help families find and identify the bodies of those killed by the violent drug trade. In a false victory, thousands flock to La Lucecita for answers and absolution and for the first time ever, Emilia feels proud of her life, opening her up to find love with Epifania Flores (Adriana Paz).
Bad Guys Close In
Emilia holds a fundraiser for La Lucecita, inviting all the “royalty” of Mexico City, government and cartel leaders combined. Rita is disgusted by the dirty money flowing into the nonprofit and walks/dances on/between the tables, bitterly pointing out each of their sins (and yes, we could watch Zoë Saldaña spit out accusations while gyrating on white tablecloths all night long).
Even when Rita tries to do something good, there is no escaping the corruption all around her.
Emilia pumps the unsuspecting Jessi for information about her relationship with Manitas. Jessi admits she had an affair in the last years of their marriage, but she didn’t run away with him because Manitas would have found them and cut her up, feeding her to the dogs. This upsets and angers Emilia and she sings poignantly about feeling that she is living life in halves: half papa, half aunt; half criminal, half queen. She is beginning to lose her grip on her identity.
After Rita spots Jessi with her lover Gustavo, Jessi tells Emilia that she’s getting married again and taking the children with her to live in Polanco. Emilia responds in rage, threatening Jessi’s life, and Jessi escapes with the kids. Emilia cuts off her funds in retaliation and has Gustavo savagely beaten as a warning.
Rita is at the end of her rope, trying to play peacemaker between Jessi and Emilia, cursing the day she ever got involved with Manitas del Monte.
All Is Lost
Gustavo kidnaps Emilia and sends a menacing message to Rita: three of Emilia’s severed fingers, symbolizing the 30 million dollars he demands.
Dark Night of the Soul
Rita speaks to an obviously suffering Emilia on the phone. They tearfully revisit their conversation from London, “I’m not here by chance.…” All of their efforts to secure the primal prize of living lives in peace and authenticity have come down to this tragic moment.
Break into Three
Rita knows that giving Gustavo the money won’t keep him from killing Emilia. She calls in a “security team,” 10 hulking bodyguards with guns. She’s going after Gustavo.
Finale
Rita gathers the team and executes the plan, trying to negotiate with Gustavo to rescue Emilia. When she shows up at the hideout, a gun fight quickly breaks out and the injured Emilia and Jessi take cover. While Rita has been dragged into using violence again, Emilia chooses to end her suffering through a high tower surprise: confession.
She tells Jessi things that only Manitas would know about her, honoring the love they once had. Jessi is devastated and the two women sing “forgive me” to each other, admitting to a synthesis that neither of them desired.
Gustavo throws Emilia into the trunk of his car and orders Jessi to ride alongside him as they make their escape. Driving down a dangerous patch of roadway, Jessi has had enough; she pulls a gun on Gustavo, ordering him to pull over and release Emilia. They struggle and the car plunges over the side of a cliff, killing all three of them.
Final Image
As Rita closes her story with the bittersweet realization of her dreams of motherhood, suddenly becoming the guardian to Emilia’s young sons, a statue of Emilia is carried through the streets of Mexico City followed by mourners and musicians.
Sainthood for Emilia Pérez? Hardly. The Final Image of the film mirrors the Opening Image: another murdered woman whose life was lost to violence and misrepresented in the media, flattened to a single snapshot that could never tell the whole story.
