Dreams do nonetheless come true, it appears. On Sunday evening in Park City, Utah, the massive “hot ticket” screening was the world premiere of Bill Condon’s much-anticipated “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a blinding huge display adaptation of Terrence McNally, John Kander, and Fred Ebb’s 1992 Broadway musical of the identical identify (itself a tackle Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel of the identical identify). While the story, a couple of pair of Argentinian prisoners who’re introduced collectively in the course of the “Dirty War,” was beforehand made right into a characteristic film in 1995 with stars William Hurt, Raul Julia, and Sônia Braga, Condon’s movie marks the primary huge display musical spin on the unique materials.
And, for star Jennifer Lopez, starring in a musical — her very first, if you can believe it — was the end result of many years of dreaming. The movie, which stars breakout star Tonatiuh as Luis Molina (a flamboyant younger Argentine tossed into jail for inappropriate acts with one other man, however who desires of at some point being a lady) and Diego Luna as a political prisoner named Valentin Arregui (Molina’s initially reserved cellmate), debuted on the Eccles Theatre to huge applause in the course of the movie and a standing ovation after. Afterwards, visibly moved and teary Lopez took the stage with Condon and Tonatiuh to speak with pageant head Eugene Hernandez.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life,” Lopez mentioned, choking up. “The reason I even wanted to be in this business is because my mom would sit me in front of the TV and [‘West Side Story’] would come on once a year, on Thanksgiving. I was mesmerized and was like, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ That was always my goal, and this is the first time that I actually got to do it. This man made my dream come true.”
In the movie, Molina makes an attempt to bond with the reticent Valentin by sharing a narrative about his favourite movie (the titular “Kiss of the Spider Woman”) and the display siren Ingrid Luna (Lopez) who starred on this razzle-dazzle musical that has so enamored him. As Molina shares his vivid recollections of the movie, Lopez (and Luna and Tonatiuh in different roles) performs Ingrid as she performs the pleasant display character Aurora within the faux movie. (We promise all this meta-entertainment is sensible in context.) Thus, Condon’s movie is each a gritty jail drama and a full-blooded Technicolor musical.
As IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio wrote in his review of the film, “There aren’t that many true divas left in the world, so Lopez, a U.S.-born Latina ever adept at shapeshifting for any role that demands singing and dancing, is probably the only person to play Ingrid Luna right about now. Ingrid is meant to be an out-of-this-world-sized star, one who maybe only exists in our dreams. Lopez is one of those stars who hovers just above the ground, rarely coming down to Earth (even in ‘Hustlers,’ her most decorated performance, she’s just a bit out of reach in that fur coat as a veteran stripper mentoring ingenues).”
Of the message of the movie, Lopez later added, “Love can kind of shorten the gap of any divide between people. We could just look at each other … as individuals, as people, as human beings and not worry about who you like, who you don’t like, what your political beliefs are. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. There’s another human on the other side of you and you will find something in common with them. You are both human and you both have a heart. And that, to me, is something that was so important when I read the movie and why I wanted to be part of it.”
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” premiered on the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It is presently in search of U.S. distribution.
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