With its quartet of wonderful women sharing this year’s Best Actress prize at Cannes, Emilia Pérez is undoubtedly one to watch. Nevertheless, it seems sure to be divisive. Its director, Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust And Bone), loves to surprise us and does so again here, combining a transformational drama, cartel thriller and musical numbers into a sometimes flawed but always fascinating package.

A never-better Zoe Saldaña is the glue holding the whole enjoyably eccentric enterprise together as Rita, a talented but underappreciated lawyer working in Mexico City. When she accepts an assignment from brutal cartel boss Manitas (the astonishing Karla Sofía Gascón), Rita’s life changes forever. Manitas desperately craves a sex-change operation, unbeknownst to his wife Jessi (Selena Gomez), with Rita agreeing to make the arrangements. Four years later, Manitas re-emerges as the titular Emilia Pérez, inveigling her way back into the lives of her unsuspecting family. Adriana Paz plays a woman Emilia connects with when she reinvents herself as a force for social good.

Asking if you can also change what’s inside when you change a body, Emilia Pérez is beautifully performed, nail-biting and emotionally authentic, which sees it through some truly bonkers moments. The musical sequences range widely in their success and style, and it is certainly possible the film would have worked without them. However, they give the meaty material an extra, exuberant dimension, with the women getting an outlet for their frustrations as they sing their hearts out, while Mexico’s missing persons epidemic is confronted in a powerful number. Great filmmaking often requires risks and, although Audiard doesn’t completely pull this off, you really can’t fault his ambition.

Emilia Pérez screens on Monday 14, Sunday 20 October as part of the BFI London Film Festival; in cinemas from Friday 25 October and on Netflix from Wednesday 13 November.