Karla Sofia Gascón steps into her starring role with full force in the official trailer for Emilia Peréz. The film, streaming on Netflix beginning Nov. 13, follows Gascón in the titular role as a Mexican cartel leader who fakes her own death to evade authorities and finally undergo a gender-affirming procedure. In the new clip from the movie — which also stars Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez — sex, secrets, and cartel drama revive ghosts from the past.
At the start of the trailer, Emilia Peréz is seated at a dinner table just a few seats away from Rita Moro Castro (Saldana), the lawyer who assisted in her grand escape plan. They haven’t seen each other in years — and Emilia looks nothing like she used to. It’s only by way of an off-hand remark that Rita makes the connection, realizing in that moment who she has been reunited with.
Their reunion is full of quiet emotion communicated through expressive glances and lingering looks. But the same cannot be said of the state of Emilia’s relationship with Jessi Del Monte (Gomez), her wife who spends the majority of the trailer completely crashing out. There are blips of moments from their life together, but even those are presented alongside the sound of roaring guns and scenes of wicked kidnappings.
The new trailer is the first to more clearly lay out the premise of the film and waits until it has nearly concluded before leaning into one of its most crucial elements: It’s also a musical. Toward the end of the clip, Saldana puts on a show from the middle of a dinner table and Gomez cries out in the middle of a mob of dancers.
“Emilia Pérez is a phenomenal role,” Gascón told Netflix’s TUDUM. “It’s a dream role that is hard to find because it has so much depth, so much richness. And for an actor to get into it, it needs a lot of dedication, and a lot of work because you have two voices that also sing with a Mexican accent. It is so huge.”
The film was written and directed by Jacques Audiard. It also features Adriana Paz and Édgar Ramírez. French songwriting and composing duo Clément Ducol and Camille helmed the original score and music.
In a review of Emilia Perézwhich premiered at Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, Rolling Stone‘s David Fear wrote: “We love Audiard’s work to death, and Emilia Perez proves that he refuses to play anything safe; the equal amount of tongue-in-cheek gestures and sincerely tender exchanges makes this one of the bigger swings in his career.”
