This weekend, the 97th Academy Awards will take place. Many people are curious about what will win the coveted award, Best Picture. Emilia Pérez, a French film entirely in Spanish, won Best Picture Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes and is one of the favorites to win the Oscar for Best Picture. However this film is not only poorly made; it is also controversial behindthe scenes.

There were many problems with this film even before it was shot. First, the director, Jacques Audiard, was born in Paris, France in 1952. Fathered by a famed French director, Audiard was guided into the path of filmmaking by both of his parents. Beginning his screenwriting career in the 1980s, Audiard was passionate about his craft yet wanted more for his career. In 1994, hedirected his first film, a French movie called See How They Fall (Regarde les hommes tomber). He continued with his directing career, competing for the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival in 2012 for his film Rust and Bone. He even won the Palme d’Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, being handed the trophy by lifelong heroes the Coen brothers.

However, not much effort was put into the making of Emilia Pérez. Though obtaining a star-studded cast, Audiard didn’t do any research about the Mexican cartel, the main plot point of the story, saying in an interview with Paloma y Nacho, “I kinda already knew what I had to understand.” He clearly didn’t know enough because many people from Mexico felt incredibly misrepresented by the film and thought it didn’t showcase the country truthfully.

There has also been a lot of controversy surrounding the lead actress of the film, Karla Sofía Gascón. Karla Sofía Gascón has been praised for her role, with it being called impressive and bold. However, just recently stories have come out about her past and what she has posted on twitter less than five years ago. These tweets consist of racist comments towards muslims, Chinese people, and George Floyd. In these tweets, she said that George Floyd was “a drug addict swindler” and few people would care about his death. She also said that the Oscars were “an Afro-Korean festival” and “a Black Lives Matter demonstration.” This was clearly received poorly by the fans and the film community, advocating for her to be banned from the Oscars this year. However, she didn’t break any of the Oscars bylaws and will be at the show on March 2.

Finally, the movie as a whole is not good. With a very interesting plot, the execution of the film is poor. It uses a lot of the classic Hollywood “Mexico Yellow” and has been criticized for it. But the main criticism comes from the music. Yes, this movie about a Mexican cartel leader getting a sex change is also a musical. The songs, though nominated for many awards, have poor vocals, are incredibly annoying and overall bad. The message about trans recognition is important, but is not well portrayed in this movie. The movie “I Saw the TV Glow” is a much better movie about trans recognition, and portrays transitioning much better. Yet “I Saw the TV Glow” has received little to no praise from the critics and award shows while “Emilia Pérez” has received many nominations and awards.

This movie had a really good plot line and message on the surface, but the controversies surrounding the director Jacques Audiard and lead actress Karla Sofía Gascon worsen this movie a lot. Along with the stereotypical look of Mexico and the bad music, this is one of the worst movies of the year. There are plenty other films that deserve to win best picture at the Oscars over it.