While “Joker: Folie à Deux” may turn out to be this year’s most reviled flick and its biggest commercial flop, it has lost one of its epithets with the release of a new film this week: craziest movie musical of 2024. That designation now belongs to “Emilia Pérez,” the new feature by French director Jacques Audiard about a male Mexican drug lord who transitions to female. 

That’s not it’s only audacious element, though, for the picture also involves several leading roles, some wishful or downright unbelievable plot developments, and, as to be expected, multiple songs sung in Spanish and English. Making its premiere Wednesday on Netflix, “Emilia Pérez” is a heady mix that may leave you exhilarated, dumbfounded, or dissatisfied — perhaps even all three. 

The auto-tuned voice at the movie’s start isn’t an auspicious way to begin a musical, but soon we get to its first proper song, sung by Zoe Saldaña. She plays Rita Mora Castro, an attorney preparing closing statements in the defense of a man accused of murdering his wife. She’s sure he’s guilty, but the leading attorney on the case, a pompous man who’ll deliver the remarks she’s writing, tells her to concoct a suicide theory, which she does while experiencing the chaotic nighttime atmosphere of a Mexican market. 

After the trial, another song quickly arrives; it addresses Rita’s struggles as a woman, with cleaning women dancing around her. Both of these numbers are vibrantly staged and competently sung, and they explore the movie’s main themes: what makes a woman and how does she navigate a man’s world. These themes take a more curious turn when Rita meets with Juan (Karla Sofía Gascón), the intimidating leader of a drug cartel. Juan compels Rita to help him fulfill his long-held dream of becoming a woman. He also wants out of his violent life, and wishes to keep everything a secret from his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez) and their two children.

More music arrives as Rita flies to various locations to research gender-affirming surgery. With lyrics such as, “I’d like to know about sex change operations,” the songs by French composers Camille and Clément Ducol aren’t exactly Sondheim, but most are heartfelt and even generate some campy fun. 

The tune “Lady” sees Rita meeting with a Jewish doctor at Tel Aviv, who doubts Juan’s reasons for wanting to become a woman. When he talk-sings to Rita that he cannot “fix the soul,” the plucky lawyer responds by connecting Juan’s desire for sex reassignment with social change. Naively, she’s arguing on behalf of a person whose thugs have kidnapped her twice. 

Once the film jumps ahead four years, with Juan now having become Emilia Pérez, it loses some of its wackiness but gains in earnestness. Jessi and the kids are living in Switzerland and believe that Juan was killed, while Emilia wants to play a part in her children’s lives and enlists the now-wealthy Rita to help bring them back to Mexico City. Later, Emilia and Jessi cohabitate in the same house they owned before, with the mother believing Emilia is a distant relative of Juan’s. The truth will out, of course, though the plot doesn’t unfold exactly as one expects.

Concurrent to this principal plotline is Emilia and Rita’s founding of an organization to help locate and identify the bodies of those killed by ongoing drug-related violence and gang warfare. This serious subject receives stirring ballad treatment via “Para” (which can be translated as “To” or “For” or, cleverly, “Stop”). Yet the song’s depiction of convicted killers admitting to where “the bodies are buried” is another unconvincing element, particularly when the reality is that more than 100,000 people remain missing. 

Each of the lead actresses gets a couple of big numbers, with Ms. Gomez, who also has a career as a recording artist, the most comfortable with the material, though she has less to do than the others. As Emilia (and Juan initially), Ms. Gascón gives a sympathetic, sensitive performance, and there’s talk she could be the first openly trans actress to be nominated for an Oscar. 

It’s Ms. Saldaña, though, who really steals the show throughout, demonstrating her immense, naturalistic talent by moving beyond playing a sci-fi creation, as in her roles for the “Avatar” movies and Marvel cinematic universe. Her performance of the song “El Mal” (“The Evil”), in which Rita wishes she could expose the corruption of the attendees of a charity gala, might just be the film’s high point.

Mr. Audiard directs each musical set piece fluidly, having clearly learned from classic Hollywood musicals. His balancing of location shooting with more controlled sound stage scenes also reinforces the film’s realistic/fantastical concept. Still, some viewers will have trouble reconciling the drug kingpin narrative with a musical melodrama. It doesn’t help that the movie’s message on cis and trans women’s solidarity and cycles of violence ends up muddled, reducing “Emilia Pérez” to one note — a bum one.