Netflix's first Emilia Perez trailer actually has singing in it

Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez made a splash at the Cannes Film Festival this year, earning particular praise for its trio of female leads. Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez collectively won the festival’s prize for Best Actress (alongside the fourth member of their ensemble, Adriana Paz), after which Netflix picked up the movie for distribution. Now, ahead of the movie’s November 13 streaming premiere, Netflix is highlighting the Best Actress award-winners in its first teaser for the audacious musical movie. 

A synopsis accompanying the Emilia Perez teaser describes the film as “an audacious fever dream that defies genres and expectations. Through liberating song and dance and bold visuals, this odyssey follows the journey of four remarkable women in Mexico, each pursuing their own happiness. The fearsome cartel leader Emilia (Karla Sofía Gascón) enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña), an unappreciated lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help fake her death so that Emilia can finally live authentically as her true self.”

We’ve seen time and again how movie musical marketing tends to obscure the fact that the movie is in fact a musical. This teaser ranks somewhere in the middle of those we’ve seen lately; you don’t see anyone actually sing, but there is singing and a fair amount of choreography. A haunting, vulnerable voice reflects upon the contradictions of Emilia’s life over lingering close ups of Gascón, Saldaña, and Gomez. 

A lengthier trailer from French distributor Pathé Films featured more of Emilia Perez, including Rita being summoned by the infamous cartel leader Manitas to help the drug kingpin undergo gender reassignment surgery. Years later, they meet again when Emilia needs help reuniting with and relocating her wife (Gomez) and children. The Spanish-language feature teases danger and intrigue in addition to a meditation on identity carried by Gascón’s critically acclaimed performance. “I think this movie is about the power of femininity,” she told Variety at Cannes. “It starts in a very dark, male-dominated, violent world and, thanks to community, it becomes brighter and better.”