When a Cartel Leader Sings, the Whole Room Gets Uncomfortable
Nobody expected Netflix to drop a musical about a Mexican drug lord — least of all one choreographed by Damien Jalet. But here we are, watching bodies move across the screen in ways that feel less like entertainment and more like defiance.
Jalet, the choreographer behind the show's most arresting sequences, has called dance in "Emilia Pérez" a "tool for resistance." That phrasing matters. These aren't splashy Broadway numbers designed to make you tap your feet. They're tense, loaded with subtext, and deliberately unsettling. Movement becomes the language characters use when spoken words would be too dangerous or too honest.
The Musical Nobody Quite Knows How to Feel About
Critics have been wrestling with this show since it dropped. The Jerusalem Post noted the wild premise — a cartel leader's journey to an operating table in Tel Aviv — and you can almost hear the reviewer blinking in disbelief. It's ambitious to the point of audacity.
The New Yorker wasn't as generous. Their take that it's "an incurious musical about a trans drug lord" stings because it points at a real tension. Does the show dig deep enough into its characters, or does it lean on shock value and hope nobody notices? That's the tightrope every bold project walks, and not everyone sticks the landing.
Vulture asked the question Netflix executives were probably whispering in boardrooms: are subscribers actually ready for this? Streaming audiences are used to bingeable comfort. "Emilia Pérez" doesn't hand you a cozy blanket. It hands you a mirror and asks you to keep watching even when you'd rather look away.
Dance as the Thing That Makes It All Click
Here's what separates this show from other prestige experiments — the choreography isn't decoration. It's load-bearing. Jalet built sequences where the dancers' bodies carry the weight of identity, power, and survival all at once. You don't need subtitles for what the movement is saying.
Think about the most powerful protest scenes you've ever watched in film. The ones that stuck with you probably involved people moving together, not just shouting. That's the register "Emilia Pérez" taps into. The dance sequences feel like collective resistance, bodies refusing to stay still when the world demands their silence.
National Review cheekily dubbed it "El Chapo Goes Woke," which is funny until you realize they're actually onto something. The show deliberately flips the drug lord narrative on its head, and the dance numbers are where that inversion feels most visceral. You're watching someone reclaim their body and their story in real time.
What This Means for Dance on Screen
Not everyone will love "Emilia Pérez." That's fine. But for anyone who cares about how dance functions in storytelling — not as a break from the plot, but as the plot itself — this show is worth your attention.
Jalet and his team have proven something important: movement can carry narrative complexity that dialogue sometimes can't. A single gesture, a shift in weight, a dancer's refusal to look away — these moments tell you everything about who a character is and what they're fighting for.
Netflix took a gamble. The conversation around the show proves it paid off, even if the reviews are split. Dance as resistance isn't a new idea — but watching it executed on a platform this massive, for an audience this broad? That's rare. And it's exactly the kind of risk that keeps dance relevant in a culture that often forgets how powerful bodies in motion can be.
