By Marcianne Miller

Let’s celebrate with three excellent programs to say farewell to one of the most turbulent years in our Asheville history. Emilia Pérez is a wild Mexican bandit story with an incredible gender twist. Blink is a heart-rending documentary that will make you laugh and cry and never forget it. Hot Frosty is the coolest — and hottest — Christmas movie ever!

Emilia Pérez

Emilia Pérez received the Jury Prize at Cannes this year, the festival’s third highest honor. The four main female actors also won an unprecedented ensemble award for Best Actress. France entered the film into this year’s American Oscar competition. Yes, lots of people worldwide liked this movie, but many people did not. They haven’t been quiet about their displeasure, so you will undoubtedly read negative reactions.

I’m one of the Americans who liked the movie despite its imperfections. My advice: plan on watching it for just 30 minutes. Then you’ll know, nay or yeah—to end it at half an hour or watch the entire two-plus hours through to the end.

Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saldana, Special Ops: Lioness), a Mexico City attorney, dances and sings in rage

—because of the country’s misogynist culture, she was not able to convict a murderous husband. At night, on a street corner, she gets snatched—and then finds herself facing Juan “Manitas” Del Monte, a powerful cartel crime boss. Manitas is an ugly, scarred, gold-toothed hulk (played by Karla Sofia Gascon—remember that name). No matter how many people he’s killed or how many millions he has acquired, this horrible man has always held one dream—he wants to be a woman!

He offers Rita a ton of money to arrange his transition. After he fakes his murder, he wants to move his widow— young, blonde Jessi (Selena Gomez, Only Murders in the Building) and his two children to safety in Switzerland. Thrilling dance scenes attest to Rita’s accomplishment of these difficult international tasks.

Four years later, back in Mexico City, Emilia Pérez shows up, claiming to be a distant cousin of Manitas, and moves into a sunny hillside villa. Emelia is an attractive, large-breasted woman with perfect teeth, painted fingernails, and long blond tresses. She wears gorgeous clothes and always walks in sexy high heels. Yes, it’s Manitas in his new body! (Again, played by Karla Sofia Gascon, a Mexican actor who transitioned six years ago—and is now honored as a great actress!).

With Jessi and the kids returning from Switzerland to live with her, Emilia is deliriously happy and sings to the children. She even starts a loving relationship with political widow Epifania (Adriana Paz, Vis a is, 2018). Jessi, finally feeling like a real widow, wants to use the generous inheritance she got from Manitas’ death to start a new life with her lover, Gustavo.

Alas, Emilia Pérez is not a fairy tale, and we are reminded that the effects of evil, even though forgotten, cannot be danced away. In the end, reality and revenge take center stage.

Director Jacques Audiard (Dheepan, 2015) based his seventh film on the 2018 novel Ecoute by Boris Razon.

Shot in France. Spanish with English subtitles.

MPA Rating: R for language, some violent content, and sexual material.

Netflix. Time 2:16

“Emilia Pérez,” “BLINK,” and “Hot Frosty”

BLINK

Blink is the story of a Canadian family—a mother, father, and four energetic, athletic children—who made a long bucket list of everything they wanted to do in life, serious or silly. Then, for a year, they traveled to 124 countries to do these things: in jungles, rivers, mountains, caves, snow, and deserts, eating all kinds of food, and meeting all sorts of people.

The reason they did this could be sad: three of the four children have an inherited, progressive, incurable disease that will eventually reduce their vision and probably make them blind. So, they each decided to spend a full year creating visual memories they could access all their life, regardless of their vision.  

Marvelously directed by Edmund Stenson and Daniel Roher. 

You can see a preview of the documentary on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVR5AmVehIM

Suggestion: Adults might want to research retinitis pigmentosa (lots on the internet) so you can explain to children why the family did what they did.

MPA rating: G for thematic elements, some language, and brief smoking.

Shot in Canada and 100+ other countries.

Languages: English, French, Spanish, Shuar (Ecuador)

On Disney + and Hulu. Time 1:42

“Emilia Pérez,” “BLINK,” and “Hot Frosty”

HOT FROSTY

For young widow Kathy Barrett (Lacey Chabart, Mean Girls), life is tough now after the death of her beloved husband. As usual, though, Kathy works long hours in the diner they formed together, and her many kindnesses to everyone else help her forget her loneliness.

“You’ll never find warmth,” her fashion store friends warn her, “if you don’t go out in the cold.”  And they gift her a beautiful, long, knitted red scarf.

On the way home alone, Kathy wraps the scarf around the neck of the sculpture, which looks like a tall human man.

After midnight—holiday magic! The snowman turns into a human (Dustin Milligan, Schitt’s Creek)! He walks naked downtown, but after horrified passersby sees him, he goes through the window of the fashion store and puts on some clothes.

The next day, of course, Kathy runs into him, and since no one knows what to do with him, even though he’s very handsome and irrepressibly charming, she plants him for safety in her living room. After watching TV, he fixes things around the house for Kathy—and a growing number of admiring neighborhood women. He names himself “Jack” despite the problems wrought by the irritable sheriff; through many hilarious misadventures, Kathy and Jack get to know one another.

Alas, harsh reality enters and threatens to melt their happiness. Oh no! But don’t worry! It’s a Christmas romance, and all will be well. I guarantee you’ll love this clever winter movie as much as I did—and maybe watch it again in the summer!

Director: Jerry Ciccoritti  (Schitt’s Creek)

14 episodes 

Shot in Brockville, Ontario, Canada

Netflix TV PG. Time 92 minutes

Local movie theater update

Info on the Grail Moviehouse

For photos and latest news on the Helene-destroyed theatre, from owners Davida Horwitz and Steve White, go to: www.grailmovie.house

For the Documentary Review “I could Never Go vegan”