Emilia Perez Plot Synopsis
Emilia Perez is a critically acclaimed Spanish-language musical directed by French maestro, Jacques Audiard and won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. The 2024 movie stars Latin talents including Karla Sofia Gascon, Zoe Saldana, Selena Gomez, Edgar Ramirez and Adriana Paz.
It follows Juan Manitas Del Monte (Karla Sofia Gascon), a dangerous Mexican drug kingpin who’s ready to retire and has been secretly transitioning into a woman. To start her new life as Emilia Pérez, she hires an overworked lawyer, Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana), to help stage her death and arrange gender-affirming surgery, keeping everything a secret.
To protect her family from her corrupt past, Perez distances herself from her children and her wife, Jessi (Selena Gomez), relying only on Rita, who knows the truth. But as Emilia steps into her new life, loneliness grows as she misses her family.
Well, with all those plot twists and a bittersweet conclusion, here is an ending-explained article on the movie, Emilia Perez.
Did Jessi and Emilia ever love each other?
When Jessi comes back to Mexico, we see that she is having an affair with someone called Gustavo. She is more open about their relationship now that she believes her husband is dead. One night, Emilia spots her coming back after a date. Curious, she asks Jessi about her relationship with her husband.
Jessi reveals that she did love Manitas but after the kids were born he changed and she was lonely. She believed that if he hadn’t died, he would have found someone younger and dumped her. Believing that their love was over, Jessi had an affair with someone but it was too intense and so she ended it. She didn’t run away as she was scared of Manitas killing her.
Emilia is troubled by these revelations as it seems she did love Jessi. But she moves on when she falls for Epifania, the La Lucecita lady who wished her abusive husband dead.
During the shootout, when Emilia is knocked out for a while, she comes around and tells Jessi that she is her husband. When Gustavo drives off with them, Jessi regrets hurting Emilia. She tries to stop Gustavo, even pointing a gun at him. But he refuses and they struggle before the car crashes, killing all three.
Why does Emilia want to find the missing bodies?
Emilia and Rita are outside when a woman gives them a flyer of her mission son, Octavio. He has been missing for years but she still has hope. Rita and Emilia are troubled as there are tons of such missing people due to cartel violence. While Octavio’s disappearance is not Emilia’s doing, she too is responsible for a lot of disappearances during her time as a drug lord. She regrets it and understands what it is to lose a child.
She enlists Rita to find Octavio and his mother is filled with gratitude when they find his corpse. When she thanks Emilia for her help, the former cartel head is overwhelmed. She knows she was part of the problem and wants to fix it. She starts sending Rita to talk to former Sicarios to return missing bodies to their families, or at least their belongings.
As they find more and more missing people and corpses, Rita and Emilia launch the NGO, La Lucecita. They aim to help families find their loved ones or at least get closure. People start volunteering as well, those who need to find purpose and those who feel guilty and want to turn their lives around.
Why does Rita stay with Emilia?
In the first half of the movie, Rita is scared of Emilia and cries in relief when the mission is over. When Emilia approaches her in London, Rita is terrified as she believes the cartel head wants to kill her for being a loose end. Even after Rita helps her reunite with Jessi and the kids, Emilia is lonely as only the lawyer knows her secret. She makes up excuses for wanting Rita to stay longer.
In the beginning, we also see that Rita actually wants to make a difference but is forced to work for crooked lawyers. With La Lucecita, she realises she has a chance to make the drug lords and the dirty politicians pay for their actions. Emilia also credits and acknowledges her hard work, unlike her previous boss.
When she is down, Emilia pays attention to her and cheers her up. By the end of the movie, they become fast friends as we see Rita doing all she can to rescue Emilia from Gustavo and Jessi.
Why does everything go wrong?
After Emilia, Rita and Jessi regroup 4 years later, things seem to be going smoothly. Emilia’s kids warm up to her. She doesn’t interfere in Jessi’s love life who is with Gustavo. Emilia and Rita launch La Lucecita and find a purpose in life. Emilia also falls in love with Epifania, which she believes is the last missing puzzle of her new life.
But things start going wrong when Jessi announces that she is getting married to Gustavo. Emilia doesn’t care but she is annoyed when Jessi claims that the kids will be shifting to Gustavo’s villa. Emilia lashes out at her, insults her and claims that the kids are hers. A confused Jessi believes she is stealing her kids and runs off with them. It doesn’t help that Emilia’s bodyguard roughs up Gustavo and pays him to leave.
After Jessi runs off with the kids, Emilia freezes her accounts. Rita is stuck in the middle as the two women panic and turn to her to find a solution. Desperate for money, Gustavo and Jessi kidnap Emilia and cut off her fingers. They hold her hostage for 30 million but Rita has other plans. Wanting to make them pay for hurting Emilia, she shows up with some shooters under the pretence of giving them the money.
However, Gustavo spots the thugs and a shootout ensues as he orders his men to attack. It creates enough distraction for him to drive off with Emilia and Jessi. They crash when Jessi realises who Emilia is and tries to stop Gustavo. There isn’t enough time to escape and the explodes, killing Emilia, Jessi and Gustavo. At the end of the movie, Rita adopts their kids while Epifania and the locals hold a memorial service for Emilia.
Read More: Emilia Perez Movie Review