In Emilia Perez’s ending, the marriage of mourning and celebration immortalized the complicated and inspiring life of the title character. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a film capture the feminine experience of actualizing one’s truth and seeking it with acute desperation so well. So you can imagine how moved I am by Jacques Audiard’s film and its story of four women trying to achieve the self and the life they deserve against the tumultuous backdrop of a crime-riddled Mexico. Yet what I admire most about Emilia Perez is its very affecting ending and how it transcends the bounds of expectations to be sincere to the journey.
Spoiler Alert
What Is The Film About?
Fate’s got a big part to play in everything that happens in Emilia Perez. From the circumstances of the characters before their worlds collide as though the universe itself conspires it, to the way they influence each other’s journeys, this melodramatic musical owes a lot to lucky or unlucky encounters. You can’t really say “She’s just paying her dues” when it comes to how Rita’s career’s going as a lawyer. In a department with deep-rooted racism and sexism, there’s hardly any way for Rita to get out of cases that require her to put her morals on the back burner. She has to endure working for this awful boss who takes credit for her work on a daily basis. Being in the business of advocating for abusive, power-hungry men is corroding her soul. When she gets a call from someone congratulating her for the win that her boss is getting patted on the back for, it seems like it’s the first time someone’s ever acknowledged her work.
So however overwhelming and scary it must be for her to be kidnapped and brought to Manitas, the ruling drug kingpin of Mexico, it still excites her to have a shot at something new. It must’ve been hell for Manitas to deal with gender dysphoria in a life that runs on boastful expressions of toxic masculinity. Now that Manitas can’t take living a lie anymore, Rita’s put in charge of finding a safe doctor for Manitas’ gender-affirming surgery. Since there’s no way for Rita to deny that having money will be the change she needs to redirect her career in the desired path, she accepts the job. What inspires Rita’s faith in Dr. Wasserman is how responsible he seems about the moral implications of his job. He isn’t instantly enamored by the offer of a life-changing sum, and he proves to be the right person for the job. But that’s not where Rita’s part ends in Manitas’ transformation to Emilia. Manitas recognized Rita’s empathy. And that’s what made her perfect for the job of relocating Manitas’ wife Jessi and their two kids to Switzerland. On her path to fully becoming Emilia, she had to destroy every link to Manitas. And for that, Manitas had to die, even for Jessi and their two sons. Rita thought her job was done. But Emilia’s realized that the life that she so longingly dreamed of was incomplete without her kids. She’s feeling their absence. And that’s what makes her seek out Rita once again.
A chance to rewrite the past
Emilia knew who she wanted to be, but she didn’t have clarity about what she’d do after the change. All her life, she’s been so uncomfortable in her own existence that the singular goal of attaining her real self was all she could think about. It isn’t that she isn’t happy after her transformation. I guess she thought she would find it easier to let go of all the things that were a part of her old life. She underestimated her love for her kids. So to fulfill her wish of reuniting with them, Rita flies Jessi and the kids back to Mexico. Emilia is happy playing the part of Manitas’ cousin. And despite their initial discomfort getting used to living in a whole new place and with a whole new person, the kids find it easy to love Emilia. But that isn’t the only way Emilia’s past makes its way into her present. When she sees the grieving mother of a man who was collateral damage in one of Manitas’ criminal escapades, Emilia has the choice to protect her newfound peace and do nothing. But that’s not the person Emilia wants to be. She wants to repent for the pain she inflicted on people back when she lived someone else’s life. So not only does she find the remains of that man and comfort his mother, but she and Rita start an NGO to help people search for their missing kin.
In a Mexico that’s fallen victim to crime and its consequences, Emilia’s genuine efforts toward bettering people’s lives prove to be just the thing that they needed. Her initiative brings people closure. It inspires new hope and helps them process their grief. But while the feeling of redemption wasn’t all that elusive to Emilia, Rita had her issues with what they were doing. While she loves being of use in a cause that’s way bigger than her, she struggles to come to terms with the fact that it’s funded by corrupt officials and criminals. That really shows how impossible it is to sidestep moral and legal infringements in the process of helping society. And when it comes to Rita, someone who’s run from a life of working with and helping corrupt people, it’s all the more difficult for her to accept that the greater good comes at the cost of that very thing. What helps her are Emilia’s words about how she’s owed half the credit for this great thing they’ve built together. As an unexpected reward for her efforts in turning her life around, Emilia finds love through her work. She didn’t start helping people find their lost friends and family thinking some of them would be glad to know that the people they’d been looking for were dead. But that’s the case with Epifania. She comes into La Lucecita’s office weaponed with a knife, fully expecting to have to fight her way out of the grasp of her abusive husband. It relieves her to know that he’s long dead. That good news is followed by more happy things when Epifania and Emilia fall in love. For the both of them, that’s the first time they feel what love’s supposed to feel like.
How Did Gustavo, Jessi, and Emilia Die?
The most ignored of the lot throughout the course of Emilia Perez has been Jessi. Even though she’s been through a lot, no one’s bothered to stop and look at her. She’s paid the biggest price so Emilia could be who she wanted to be and live the life she desired. Manitas selfishly sent Jessi and the kids off to a whole new country without even taking Jessi’s feelings about it into consideration. Jessi wanted to go to the States and live with her sister. But instead, she was forced into a whole new life. And after she just begins to settle into that life, she’s brought back to Mexico. No one’s ever treated Jessi like a person with feelings and wishes. Even when she creates her own happiness with Gustavo, a man who used to be her sanctuary back when she lived in Mexico with Manitas, Emilia’s insecurities come in the way. Of course, there’s the factor that Emilia doesn’t want to lose her children, especially after one of them tells her that she reminds him of his dad. But when Emilia attacks Jessi for wanting to start a new life and take away her kids, she’s also coming from a place of jealousy.
Emilia might’ve been living a lie as Manitas, but she did have actual feelings for Jessi. It must’ve also been hell for her to hear how Jessi used to cheat on her husband with Gustavo. Although I’m certain she didn’t nurture any grudges about it. But beyond all that, how Emilia deals with her fear of losing her kids has a lot to do with who she is at her core. Her crisis with the darkness she just can’t seem to shed after spending the better part of her life as a ruthless ganglord is a callback to what the doctor said to Rita. He said that he would only be able to change Manitas biologically. Her soul would be the same. The rage and entitlement that have been irreversibly imprinted on Emilia’s soul are what peek through when she abuses Jessi and gets her men to scare Gustavo away. Once again, she’s decided to marionette Jessi and make her do what she wants.
Even though Emilia knows that Jessi leaving with the kids is totally on her, she continues down the path of self-destruction by punishing Jessi further. She drains her accounts and blocks all her credit cards, essentially forcing her to come back. What she underestimates is how badly Jessi wants out of the hell that’s been her life ever since Manitas supposedly died. Rita’s tried and failed to mediate and talk some sense into Emilia. And she’s completely devastated when Emilia is kidnapped by Gustavo and Jessi. The two severed fingers she receives from Gustavo doesn’t really inspire her to trust him with Emilia’s safety. So it makes sense that she puts together an army to ambush the drop off spot. Sadly, that’s exactly what aggravates a situation that otherwise would’ve ended with Gustavo taking the money and letting Emilia go. When a panicked Gustavo fires the first shot and that kicks off a storm of bullets shot by both parties, Emilia knows that she can’t make it out alive. I think that’s what compels her to come clean to Jessi. She makes good use of her last chance to give Jessi her closure and tells her that she used to be Manitas. Beyond all the problems they’ve had, Jessi has always loved Manitas. She acknowledged that when she was talking to Emilia too. Now that it’s time for her to pick a side, Jessi proves her undying loyalty to her husband by pulling a gun on Gustavo.
In Emilia Perez’s ending, Gustavo, Jessi, and Emilia die in a fiery car crash. The way Emilia meets her end kind of makes her life come a full circle. She could’ve avoided this fate if she’d rejected the toxic remnants of her old life. Manitas was supposed to die a death like this, but Emilia could’ve had a better end. Her decisions must’ve had something to do with how the power got to her head too. Once she tasted how it meant to lead the charge again, she was vulnerable to the demons of her past. As for Jessi, she never had a say in her own life anyway. Manitas and Emilia decided the course of her life. So it makes for an unavoidable and tragic end when Jessi dies proving her love for her abuser. However much she’s been shaken by her loss, I think Rita will continue doing the work, if only to celebrate Emilia’s legacy. The kids have already grieved their dad. And now another loss has hit them. But I bet Rita will try to safeguard them against the pain to the best of her abilities.
In the ending scene, the wake rally Epifania heads for the love that she’s lost acknowledges all the good Emilia’s done in her complicated, often terrible, and wonderful existence. Emilia’s last few actions did prove the doctor’s cynicism about the idea of transformation right. But the positive change she brought to her surroundings also proved Rita’s argument right. Rita’d told the doctor that change and truth heal society. If Emilia hadn’t gotten a chance to live her truth, the world would’ve been worse for it. She would’ve only left darkness behind if she was forced to live her life as Manitas. But her transition did fix the pain that she’d felt ever since she could think. And when she got to be who she’d always wanted to be, Emilia changed lives for the better. While you can’t deny the ill-effects of her terrible choices, she’s mended a lot of hearts and fixed a lot of lives too. And what’s grief if not the acknowledgement of a person’s whole truth?
