Nora Ririe’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
The more time I spend thinking about this movie the more I dislike it. I expected to dislike it because of the problematic trans representation, but I didn't mind it too much to be honest. It was fine. Not the best but whatever.
What I dislike about this movie is that there's really nothing to it. The plot is a pretty typical crime drama and the songs are all forgettable — even the most offensive of them. With that in mind, yeah! The song about trans surgeries is bad. And it's weird and it makes me upset. The other songs aren't really bad though (although none of the singing is good), I just couldn't tell you what they sound like. The movie looks beautiful and it's very well choreographed but that feels like it's just a bunch of style over substance, especially when most of those things feel like they're just trying to compensate for the mess that the script is.
There's so much potential here, too. Emilia could have some guilt over her past life and that could fuel her eventual starting of a nonprofit. But that motivation is absent. It seems instead to be that she's doing something good now: not really for any reason, but just because she can. There's some weird stuff there about using transness to escape a past life but it doesn't even go all-in on that, either. There's also that song where Rita sings about how corrupt Mexico is but then that idea is ALSO never revisited. There are themes of friendship and love and family but they all feel half-cooked, jumping in at whatever opportune moment feels best for them.
I can't get over how forgettable the music here is, I'm sorry. The more I write the more I forget that this is a fucking musical! The songs work within the film but they just don't really serve a purpose.
There's also some gross stuff (especially in the first act) (outside of the bad song) where the film emphasizes the shock value of trans bodies. It made me feel sad. Like yes, I have tits and a dick and a deep voice and until recently I had facial hair. But Rita being shocked at Emilia's body is some '90s shit and I think it's unacceptable here. The film itself is obsessed with the trans body and how we use surgeries in our transitions and it seems to like that without really understanding it.
All of that being said, this is a largely inoffensive (as in, not really all that bad) but simultaneously a little offensive (as in, a man wrote a movie about a trans woman) film that probably doesn't deserve the praise and acclaim it has received. It's a giant nothing burger but there are aspects to be appreciated about it even if most of it doesn't really work after more than a little thought.
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