MEXICO CITY - “Emilia Pérez,” the movie about a transgender Mexican cartel leader who reconciles with her past, enters the Academy Awards on Sunday with 13 nominations, the most of any film this year. It is also the most nods ever for any non-English language film. The film has already won several accolades, including best comedy or musical at the Golden Globe Awards.

In Mexico, the reception has been exactly the opposite.

It has been widely criticized for its depiction of the country, the minimization of the cartel violence that has ravaged so many and the few Mexicans involved in its production. Comments about Spanish by its French writer-director, Jacques Audiard, which some saw as denigrating the language, and by its lead, Karla Sofía Gascón, about Islam and George Floyd, stoked the discontent in Mexico and made matters worse.

“Emilia Pérez” wasn’t released in Mexican theaters until Jan. 23 — five months after its debut in France and two months after its U.S. release. In Mexico, theaters showing the film have been largely empty. Some unhappy moviegoers have even demanded refunds. An online Mexican short film parodying the French roots of “Emilia Pérez,” on the other hand, was a hit. “Emilia Pérez” has been the fodder of many social media memes. And it has been denounced by the families of victims of violence in Mexico. “It has become a real disaster,” said Francisco Peredo Castro, a film expert and a history and communications professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. A main critique of “Emilia Pérez” is that it trivializes Mexico’s ongoing struggle with organized crime. There have been more than 460,000 homicides since 2006, when the president then declared war on the cartels. The movie is a musical, with glitzy song-and-dance numbers, including lyrics about bodies disposed of in acid. “We should keep things in perspective and say, ‘We’re not going to sing or dance about this subject,’” said Artemisa Belmonte, 41, who became an activist after her mother, three uncles and a cousin disappeared in 2011 in Chihuahua state, a region hit hard by the drug war. More than 100,000 people have vanished in Mexico since 2006, according to government data.

Ms. Belmonte wondered if Hollywood or the European cinema industry would dare to make musicals about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. During a news conference before the film’s release in Mexico, Mr. Audiard said he apologized if he handled a delicate subject “too lightly.” In a different interview, he said that “cinema doesn’t provide answers; it only asks questions, but maybe the questions in ‘Emilia Pérez’ are incorrect.” (He has also said that he didn’t study Mexico much before making the film.) Netflix, which bought the U.S. distribution rights for “Emilia Pérez” at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, declined to comment. It recently announced a $1 billion investment to produce series and films in Mexico over the next four years. David Chelminsky, the director of Zima Entertainment, which distributed the film in Mexico, said in an interview that he had never had a film in his career generate such hatred in the country.

“All criticism is valid, but there was a very virulent, very aggressive criticism that didn’t leave room for other opinions,” he said. “So people who liked the film or who wanted to see it preferred to stay a little bit on the sidelines because there were constant attacks against anyone who came out to say, ‘I liked it.’” He suggested there were tinges of xenophobia and transphobia in some critiques.