By John Corrado
Kiss of the Spider Woman, the new musical film from Dreamgirls director Bill Condon, is a big screen reimagining of the 1992 stage musical from John Kander and Fred Ebb, that was in turn based on a 1976 novel that had a 1985 film adaptation.
Set during Argentina’s military dictatorship in 1983, the film opens with two men thrown into a prison cell together. Valentin Arregui (Diego Luna) is a political dissident arrested for going against the dictatorship. Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) is queer and has been arrested for “public indecency” after being caught with a guy in a bathroom.
When they first meet, Valentin is deep in thought reading and doesn’t want to be disturbed, his prickly rejection of the flamboyant Molina tipping over into what seems at first like homophobia. But Molina begins to chip away at Valentin’s intensity by telling him the plot of his favourite movie; a musical called Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring his favourite actress Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez).
As Molina draws Valentin in with his retelling of the film’s story, the worlds between fiction and real life begin to merge. This is where Condon’s film really comes alive, with fantasy sequences where it becomes a full on, MGM-inspired musical. The song and dance numbers are done in the style of Old Hollywood musicals, shot on sound stages and featuring vibrant costumes and colourful production design, the aspect ratio shrinking from 1.85:1 to 1.33:1.
Because of the nature of the story, each performer is tasked with fulfilling a few roles. Luna and Tonatiuh are not only Valentin and Molina, but also the fictional love interest Armando and the closeted Kendall Nesbitt, within the imagined world of the film-within-a-film. For her part, Lopez has three layers to her performance; the actress Ingrid Luna, her character Aurora, as well as the titular Spider Woman, who exists to fulfill a curse within the story.
Condon’s film has to balance being a lot of things; prison drama, queer romance, and old school musical, not to mention being indebted to the source material and its previous adaptations. The pacing is at times uneven, and the 128 minute film does drag a bit in places. The prison scenes also have somewhat of a stage-like quality to them. In comparison to the brightly coloured fantasy scenes, the real world stuff looks kind of flat. We find ourselves wishing we were spending more time in the Technicolor world, which is perhaps an intentional stylistic choice.
But Kiss of the Spider Woman works more often than not as a new adaptation, with Condon doing a decent job of exploring the story’s many themes about queer identity, political oppression, and the power of art and filmmaking as a means of escapism. The film is carried by the chemistry between Luna and Tonatiuh, who is the breakout star of the film, and in many ways the narrative’s driving force. Lopez commands the screen in the fantasy sequences, a natural fit for the singing and choreography that the role requires. Finally, it has lovely musical score running throughout.
Film Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)
The Joy of Movies 