Critics reviews

The talented director and his team, especially cinematographer Sergio Armstrong and editor Sebastián Sepúlveda, can sometimes a feel a little too self-aware—there’s a version of “Ema” that’s rougher around the edges and more reckless—but even that choice kind of makes sense when Ema’s ultimate plan is finally revealed.

If you approach Ema from a moralistic standpoint, you’ll find that you’re not really “siding” with anyone, and that’s because the film isn’t interested in making an argument about right and wrong. It’s more about raw, messy, human emotions but using the lush colors and a literal napalm thrower to accentuate Ema’s internal fire.

Egged on by Nicolas Jaar’s pounding reggaeton soundtrack, and buffed by Sergio Armstrong’s luminous cinematography, “Ema” moves with a dynamism that can’t blur its unsavory undertones. Whether a melodramatic comment on art and anarchy, or a wild experiment in toxic maternalism, the film feels like a fever that just won’t break.

Ema is about many things—a couple’s failed adoption, the special vitriol reserved for unconventional mothers, the way dance can return to a body what it has lost—but mostly, it’s about what happens when a filmmaker withholds familiar structures of time and feeling, yielding sentiment to ambient suspension.

Under the weight of Larraín’s visual style, the emptiness at the center of Ema’s character nearly collapses the film, before a gobsmacking ending reveals her true motivations.

“Ema” offers no narrative sleights of hand, and it follows its lead as she undertakes her plan without resorting to plot twists or shocking reveals. And though Larraín doesn’t hide anything, he tells the story with an offbeat style that presents images without necessarily telegraphing their importance within the larger plot — in essence, pushing “show, don’t tell” so far so that every that every viewer will come to understand the main character’s larger plans at a different point in the film.

Amidst all the conflagration, Larraín seems to want to say something sincere about motherhood: What it means, where it begins and ends, to what extent it’s political... He still has no clear thought beyond devastation, though. Maybe Ema doesn’t either.

A sublime fever dream.

You get the distinct impression that Larraín and his collaborators are so focused on the performance of all the film's elements that they forget to make sure we are absorbed by the overall dance - but many of those elements are compelling in their own right.

The superficiality of these self-serving characters is reflected in Larraín’s direction. The film is all about the chase: it’s an aggressive seduction that teases with bold visual statements, with flesh and flame throwers.

Mariana Di Girolamo is a blinding force throughout the film, a walking, talking avatar for the flickering fire she is so often drawn to. She is brash and destructive, and suppresses a feral energy within her tough, skinny frame.

Ema is like a cord of emotional firecrackers and their creative destruction. Pablo Larraín has made a film-phoenix.