You can usually tell right away when a film isn’t trying to be “liked”—at least not in any easy or digestible way as pure entertainment—but still wants to leave a strong impression. In that sense, Kill the Jockey might not be a movie people will conventionally “like,” but its ambition and excesses hold your interest at every turn. Argentine director Luis Ortega co-writes and directs an original story centered on the uncertain future of a jockey—once recognized and celebrated among the best in his sport—who, despite his success and wealth, finds himself at his lowest point, both morally and spiritually.

Completely wasted in a deep, boozy slumber, alcoholic and drug addict Remo Manfredini (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart) is picked up at a diner by a trio of thugs tasked with finding him and prepping him for an upcoming horse race. The introduction offers a portrait of “divine decadence,” slightly evoking Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, with an old jukebox as a companion to a trans woman’s dance. Meanwhile, the patrons include a homeless man with a sign around his neck asking for help, a limbless dwarf, and an exhausted-looking woman behind the counter. This mosaic plunges us into a world defined by the provocative—or at least a clear intent to provoke—and when the thugs beat up the trans woman for defending the passed-out jockey, it’s clear we’re in for bursts of violence at every turn. Bound by these rules, we’re on a trip where anything can happen.

Manfredini is in no condition to ride a horse, let alone compete in a race. But there’s too much at stake, with interests beyond his control dictating otherwise. His benefactor and almost father-in-law, Rubén Sirena (Daniel Giménez Cacho), is a mob boss who controls his life, which is riddled with debt and bad decisions. Meanwhile, Manfredini’s love for the boss’s daughter—fellow jockey Abril (Úrsula Corberó)—is genuine. They’re a couple, and she’s pregnant with his child, which should be good news. But Abril is fed up with his physical and mental state, and it’s unclear whether she’s joking or serious when she tells him that, for her to love him again, he’d have to be born anew. Those words become not just prophetic—they spark the central anguish of the protagonist and launch a narrative quest that gradually takes on metaphysical dimensions.

Kill the Jockey paints a vivid picture of Manfredini as a hedonist enslaved by his vices, forced into rehab for a couple of weeks so he can compete in a major race riding a famous horse imported from Japan. Despite Sirena’s constant supervision, the jockey has his own enablers, who hide a bottle of liquor inside the statue of the Virgin Mary he prays to before every race. As a result, his participation ends in disaster, culminating in an accident that leaves him completely incapacitated in a hospital bed. What follows is essentially a different movie—not entirely separate, but one that no longer tells Manfredini’s story, nor that of a struggling jockey, but that of someone reborn. Our protagonist is now Dolores. Or, simply, Lola.

This may be the point at which Ortega’s vision starts to lose you for being as confusing as it is absurd, maybe even feeling like a prank on your invested attention. Yet it’s also when the film becomes more unbound and irreverent, shifting from a sports-mafia drama to a more Almodóvar–esque tragicomedy. Kill the Jockey doesn’t aim to be a model of queer or trans representation, so any critique in that regard is fair. Still, it’s fascinating in the way it explores the possibility of redemption in harmony with the fluidity of sexual identity—suggesting that transitioning from man to woman parallels the shift from addict to sober, from bad boy to wise woman, from lover to friend. This theme inevitably recalls Emilia Pérez, and in that sense, the film is likely to alienate or captivate viewers just as Audiard’s film did. While Ortega’s movie isn’t a musical per se, there are enough dance sequences and injections of Argentine pop and rock songs to give this chaotic tale a distinct rhythm—a musicality that embraces its artifice and makes no pretense of realism.

Following his acclaimed El Ángel (a morally ambiguous tale centered on a gay serial killer), Ortega seems to have used his momentum to make a film that doubles down on hyper-stylization, frenzy, and a fair share of violence—likely aware that the applause this time around might not be as loud. Unafraid of being booed, he’s an artist who keeps us guessing. Whatever comes next, we’ll be watching.