Directed by Pablo Larraín
Written by Guillermo Calderón, Alejandro Moreno, and Pablo Larraín
Starring Mariana di Girólamo and Gael García Bernal
Runtime: 1 hour 47 minutes
Currently in theaters; on VOD September 14

by Jaime Davis, The Fixer, Staff Writer

“I’m evil.”

“I’m going to horrify you.”

I’m not a mom, but I think in times of crisis, many mothers would do just about anything for their children (see Not Without My Daughter, Double Jeopardy, and Animal Kingdom for a few examples). For young mom and professional dancer Ema, the title character in Pablo Larraín’s disarmingly intense latest, that means seducing a married couple, tricking someone into impregnating her, perfecting her pyrotechnic skills, charming her way into a new job, making time to practice her dance routines, alienating her soon-to-be-ex-husband (who’s also her choreographer), enlisting the help of her girl gang of friends (sleeping with them, too), all while remaining icily fixated on achieving her main goal - to get her adopted son, Polo, back from the foster family he was placed in. If that isn’t devotion, then I do not know what love is. Wouldn’t a lot of other moms do the same if the situation called for it?

Maybe not?

This dichotomy is what makes Ema so simultaneously fascinating and infuriating. You might spend two hours of your precious personal time going back and forth in your mind trying to decide exactly just how the heck you feel about Ema and her rigid, icy focus on getting what she wants in literally every scenario. My wife and I spent our Ema viewing either yelling incredulously at the TV or throwing random, unfinished questions at each other.

“Did she just--?”
“Wait, what the absolute f--?”
“I cannot even--?”

And a lot of this stems from the literal fact that Ema (the electric Mariana di Girólamo) is one of the most intriguing film characters, perhaps of ALL TIME. You read that right. She’s cool, calculating, motivated, fixated, and some might say, unwell.

Well, I’m sure as hell saying it. She’s unwell! And that’s part of the horror of the viewing experience - do we want Polo being returned to her care? Shouldn’t we want the child to remain in the relative safety of his new family?

At one point, Ema’s ex, or soon-to-be-ex, or kinda ex, Gastón (the ever-talented Gael García Bernal), 12 years her senior, accuses Ema of behaving inappropriately with Polo and encouraging curious behavior in the child. Ema also laughs off the fact that she still sleeps in her mother’s bed from time to time. Ema is an emotional terrorist for sure, holding hostage just about everyone she claims to care about. Gastón is no walk in the park either, and theirs is one of the most toxic on-screen relationships I’ve seen in quite some time. Nope, I do not want either of them to raise Polo, but it’s not for any of us to decide. Ema, with her slick platinum hair, steely stare, belly tops, silky Reggaeton dance moves, and snide smile, always gets what she wants.

Larraín, what have you gotten us all into?! Okay, so Ema is a Bad Mom and Gastón is a Bad Dad - it’s not a story many will want to revisit frequently. But the physicality of this movie? Good God, this film is lovely to behold. The coastal Valparaíso backdrop hums to life whether you’re following Ema, majestically backlit in neon, down a city street, watching her dance crew practice on a blacktop basketball court, or witnessing her nightly pyrotechnic antics shaded under a deep purple sky. Sergio Armstrong’s stunning cinematography makes the film feel larger than life like the title character herself, while Nicolas Jaar’s score lends a magical, eerie tone. There is so much color and life in Ema, an electric modern tragedy that, while beautiful, manages to dig incessantly under your skin long after its run time.