Emilia Pérez | 2024 | R | – 6.6.7

Why is “Emilia Pérez” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “language, some violent content and sexual material.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes one animated depiction of breasts, sexually suggestive dancing including partial nudity and lyrics, discussions of sex change operations, scenes of retaliatory violence with visible injuries including severed fingers, post-surgical injuries, discussions of cartel-related murders and disappearances, and about 27 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

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In this musical a Mexican cartel leader (Emilia Pérez) enlists the help of a brilliant but underappreciated attorney (Zoe Saldana) to find doctors who can help her with gender transition so she can live authentically as herself. Years later, she seeks out the attorney again for help to reunite with her family. (Editor’s Note: Before a trans woman completes her surgical transition, characters, including the trans woman herself, refer to her as a man, “he,” and “Mister”; for clarity, this review follows the film’s convention and refers to this character with masculine terms before the surgical transition). Also with Selena Gomez. Directed by Jacques Audiard. Most lines of dialogue are spoken in Spanish with English subtitles. [Running Time: 2:12]

Emilia Pérez SEX/NUDITY 6

 – A surgery website on a screen with a 3D graphic image shows a woman’s body, topless (bare breasts are visible) and wearing underwear. A woman recovering from gender transition surgery puts on a bra (we see her bare back, and the side of one of her breasts). During a musical sequence in a doctor’s office, dancers wearing minimal clothing: a few men lying on gurneys wear underwear and a few women lying on gurneys wearing bodysuits with cutouts on the buttocks are seen.
► Several musical sequences include characters touching themselves suggestively and miming sexual acts. A woman runs her hands over her buttocks and refers to her “fat [anatomical term deleted].” A woman pulls a man’s head forward between her spread legs as she sits on a table, miming oral sex. A woman dances suggestively as she sings about a man’s new, younger wife; she touches the woman’s face and some of her hair comes off in her hand, which the singing woman drags over her own clothed crotch. Several people mime gestures over their chests, like outlining nipples. During a romantic musical sequence, people dance suggestively and say “Amen,” while genuflecting.
► A woman sits on another woman’s lap; they touch each other affectionately on the arms and face, and kiss several times. Two women sing a ballad about each other and hold hands. A woman wearing an open robe walks into a kitchen and her bra and underwear are visible; another woman enters the room and it is implied that they spent the night together. A woman touches her lover’s arm while she sleeps and the lover is shirtless; we see her bare back. A man and woman embrace while singing a romantic song at karaoke; the man kisses and touches the woman’s face and they later kiss passionately while dancing. A man drives while a woman lays her head in his lap; he strokes her face. A husband puts his arm around his wife and calls her honey. A woman hugs another woman and kisses her on the head (the other woman does not know this is her husband, who has transitioned to live as a woman); the other woman appears uncomfortable with the affection.
► During a musical sequence, a woman dances wearing a large T-shirt and underwear; she frequently bends over and thrusts her buttocks in the air. A woman gets out of a car, dressed in a short skirt and low-cut top (some cleavage is visible) and she turns her back to the camera and unbuttons her shirt, showing her breasts to the man in the car (we see the back of her bare shoulders). A man tells a woman that he began “treatment” for gender transitioning (presumably hormone treatment), unzipping his jacket; we do not see his chest, but we hear the woman gasp. Sexually suggestive magazines are seen at a newspaper stand and pictures of women wearing underwear and in suggestive poses are shown. In several scenes, we see men and women dance during musical sequences in minimal clothing: men’s bare chests and some cleavage are visible, and some women wear short skirts. A woman uses a compact mirror to look at her groin after gender-affirming surgery (we don’t see anything, but she smiles). A doctor looks at a woman’s groin under a sheet after gender-affirming surgery (we do not see anything).
► A woman describes being glad her husband is dead because he used to rape her (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A woman asks another woman if they can meet again; the other woman asks why, and the first woman says, “just to see each other,” and the other woman agrees. A woman calls a man and leaves him a voicemail, saying, “my [anatomical term deleted] still hurts when I think of you.” A woman tells another woman about when they met before she transitioned: she had been dating the other woman’s sister at the time but was always staring at her and she describes when they first kissed and “went upstairs to do the rest.” During musical sequences in several scenes, lyrics refer to sex and lust, as well as gender and physical gender transitioning. Characters sing about the process of sex change operations, including the lyrics “penis to vagina or vagina to penis,” “woman to man or man to woman,” vaginoplasty, and penoplasty. A woman sings about her dead lover, calling her “the woman of my nights” who “drank from my fountain.” Two women discuss one woman’s dead husband and one woman asks the other if she loved her husband; the other woman says she was crazy about him and if he hadn’t died, she imagines that he would have found a younger woman and left her, or she would have found another man. A woman asks another woman if she ever cheated on her husband; the woman answers that she saw another man briefly but ended it when it was too intense. A woman comes out of the bathroom, wearing a bathrobe and another woman in the room startles her, telling her to “be careful” for the children (implying that the woman spending the night out with a man will have a bad influence on them). A woman says she is looking for a “father” in order to have children; another woman tells her they can buy one. A woman tells her friend’s girlfriend how much the friend likes her, and how she acts like a teenager since they met. A man and a woman appear to be on a date; as he talks, she loses interest and looks away. A woman asks another woman for a tampon, saying she is a “wreck” that week.

Emilia Pérez VIOLENCE/GORE 6

 – A woman opens a bag that was left in her office and we see several bloody severed fingers; she gasps when she recognizes whose fingers they are. Crime scene photos show a woman’s corpse, badly bruised with visible injuries to her face and eyes, and a blood-splattered shoe. Newspapers show crime scene photos (glimpses of bloody corpses) and headlines in Spanish and English about numerous murders.
► A person with a bag on their head is shot during a musical sequence and we see some blood splatter. We see a flood of blood in a bathtub, while a woman sings about her fear that she is going to be killed for what she knows. A shoot-out takes place at a remote house in the desert: a man shoots at a truck’s lights, knocking them out, and a woman screams and hides behind the truck as another woman screams and holds her ears, while a third woman, already injured, slumps over on the floor of the house (it is unclear if she is dead) and we see bullets littering the floor. In several scenes, we see people trying to track down the remains of people who have gone missing, presumably related to cartel violence. Several men in prison sing about violence against hostages; they describe burning them, killing them, cutting them into pieces, and disposing of the bodies in rivers or by the road; a man mentions killing a whole family and we see excavation sites with human remains in various states of decay, and body bags on the ground. A woman hands flyers out about her son, a college student, who went missing; we later see this woman touch a body bag (presumably her son’s remains) and cries.
► A man grabs a woman, who is tied up and injured, and drags her out of a building, and then forces her into the trunk of a car; he points a gun in her face and screams obscenities at her. A woman that is tied up and has her face covered holds her bandaged hand that is dripping blood on the floor. A man runs in the street and we then see him on the ground as another man kicks and punches him; he grunts in pain and his face is bloody as the attacker tells him if he sees him again, he’s “dog meat.” A woman hits a man while he’s driving and grabs the wheel, trying to get him to stop the car; he strikes her back and they scream at each other. A woman threatens a man with a gun while he drives and tells him to stop the car; he slams on the brakes and tries to wrestle the gun away and it discharges several times but bullets do not appear to hit anyone.
► People brandish guns in several scenes. A woman calls someone and asks them to bring “8 or 9 big guys”; we then see a roomful of people loading assault rifles and the woman is handed a loaded pistol. A woman asks one of her kidnappers what they plan to do with her, and if they will kill her; there is no answer. A kidnapped person tells a woman that the kidnapper has called to do whatever the kidnappers ask. A man is accused of murdering his wife and a lawyer discusses making a legal argument that the woman committed suicide.
► A car drives off a cliff, crashes and explodes (we know there were two passengers in the car as well as someone locked in the trunk); a woman watches in horror. People armed with guns drive in trucks somewhere unknown (it is implied they are planning an ambush).
► Characters act out violent acts in several musical sequences; a man stabs another man then runs away as the stabbed man falls (we do not see blood or injury), people mime slitting their throats, people mime punching and kicking each other with people reacting as if they have been struck. A woman wakes up in a hospital room; we see her open her eyes, and the visible skin on her face appears bloody and bruised, covered by bloody bandages.
► Two men grab a woman, put a plastic bag over her head, she screams and one man holds a phone to her ear; a voice on the other end threatens her. A woman shoves another woman onto a bed and gets on top of her, grabbing her head and threatening her. A woman tells another woman that she is getting married; the other woman is upset and calls the woman’s fiancé a derogatory word and the two women argue. Two women separately call another woman, each shouting about the other, calling each other derogatory names, and making threats. A woman tells another woman that she must leave her home with her children, or else “your husband’s enemies will hunt you and your children.” Police tell a woman that her friend’s car has been found and that the driver is dead and the friend has been kidnapped. In several scenes, people have cloth bags placed over their heads and are put in a car, then driven to an unknown location; the people are unharmed, but in some scenes, they scream and are afraid. A woman says if she had tried to leave her husband for another man, she believes he would have “cut us into pieces and fed us to the dogs.” A man asks a woman, who has a cloth bag over her head, if she is afraid; she asks if she should be, and he says no. A news segment discusses murders by Mexican drug cartels and shows footage of excavation sites and body bags; they refer to “mass graves.” A news report discusses a DNA match for the remains of a man; a woman watching recognizes him as her husband and cries. A woman tells another woman that her husband is dead, at the morgue; the widow admits she is relieved he is dead, because her husband used to hit her, rape her, and steal from her and she admits she brought a knife, in case he was alive. A woman asks another woman what to do with her abusive dead husband’s remains, and she replies to throw them away. A woman asks another woman if she ever thinks about the “horrors” she committed as a cartel leader, before she transitioned; she replies that she has many regrets. In a musical sequence, family members sing about trying to find out what happened to loved ones who disappeared, so they can mourn them. During musical sequences in several scenes, lyrics refer to murder, violence and death. A woman describes an official whose partner and family “had their throats slit” and corpses dissolved in acid, as well as cartels kidnapping kids; she describes a person with a derogatory term for a disabled person and implies he was assaulted, and she refers to another person losing a hand; she sings that “these people are going to pay.” A woman shouts that she is going to “[F-word deleted] kill everybody.” A woman hugs two children and tells them their mother was in a car accident and won’t be coming home. A man tells a doctor about his struggles with gender identity and how he has thought about killing himself.
► Many people in a doctor’s office appear to be recovering from surgeries: they are wearing hospital gowns, and some have bandages on their bodies and faces. A young boy has a bandage on his forehead (no injury is visible). Children play a skiing video game; the video game character runs into a wall but bounces off uninjured.

Emilia Pérez LANGUAGE 7

 – About 26 F-words, 7 scatological terms, 7 anatomical terms, 6 mild obscenities, name-calling (idiot, crazy, lunatic, ingrate, fool, dummy), 2 derogatory terms for gay people, 1 derogatory term for a physically impaired person, 4 religious profanities (GD), 2 religious exclamations (e.g. God, my God, genuflecting and saying “Amen” during suggestive dance). | profanity glossary |

Emilia Pérez SUBSTANCE USE

 – People discuss drug cartels in many scenes. People drink wine, beer and liquor in many scenes, a woman appears to drink a shot of liquor, and a woman comes home after a night out and appears to stumble up the stairs as if still drunk. Characters smoke cigarettes and cigars, and a child sings about his father smelling like cigars.

Emilia Pérez DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Drug cartels, murder and violence, grief and loss, disappearances, gender identity, gender-affirming care, separation from family, fleeing violence, sexual orientation, marriage and infidelity, redemption and atonement.

Emilia Pérez MESSAGE

 – People deserve to live their lives authentically as themselves; the journey to authenticity can be painful for a person and those who love them.