Emilia Pérez seems to be both a genre mashup and a Cannes highlight for many thus far. From Jacques Audiard, whose 2009 effort A Prophet took the Grand Prix in the French Riviera and scored a Foreign Language Feature nom at the Oscars, his latest mixes music, crime, and comedy. Karla Sofia Gascón is a drug cartel leader undergoing gender reassignment surgery. Zoe Saldaña is the lawyer providing assistance with Selena Gomez as Gascón’s spouse. Édgar Ramirez also costars.
Audiard is a familiar presence at Cannes. In addition to his aforementioned work from 15 years ago, 2015’s Dheepan won the Palme d’Or. The screening for Emilia has provided some of the fest’s most enthusiastic reaction in its first few days. Called audacious and crowd-pleasing, the RT score is 80% (based on a handful of write-ups).
If Mexico submits this as their choice for International Feature Film (and I suspect they will), the chances to make that final five is high. It could nab more noms than that. Some of it will come down to category placement and that seems uncertain at the moment.
Early word-of-mouth would suggest that Saldaña might be campaigned for in lead Actress with Gascón in supporting. My previous prediction posts had that dynamic switched. This will be altered when I update projections later today. I strongly suspect Gascón will be in my estimated quintet with Saldaña as a possibility in Actress (I’m toying with putting her in my five but she might be just on the outside looking in).
I also believe this could mark Audiard’s first crossover into Best Picture and that could include a nod for the filmmaker himself. While other Cannes titles have hurt their possibilities upon their screenings, it seems like Pérez could be up on the upswing. My Oscar Prediction posts will continue…
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