Kiss of the Spider Woman This is not an entry level musical. Even his characters seem to know this: in one of the first conversations after they become cellmates, prisoners Luis Molina (played by the actor mononymous Tonatiuh) and Valentin Arregui (Diego Luna) discuss the various merits of the genre.
This may be a strange conversation for them to have, given that it takes place during Argentina's “Dirty War” in the 1980s. Molina's crime of having a homosexual affair and Arregui's crime as a revolutionary organizer mean they both face lengthy stays in an institution whose guards routinely taunt, torture and even poison prisoners to extract information.
But soon their dialogue takes a lighter turn. Instead of talking about itSteeped in the darkness of political repression and unjust imprisonmentent, they start chatting about Kiss of the Spider Womana fictional film within a film that Molina adores. Part of this is because Molina has chosen not to hear about depressing things, even as he strives to get Arregui to reveal some important facts about his dark past – because getting closer to a man's black box may be his ticket out.
How to do this without warning Arregui? Molina moves cautiously, if perhaps a little quickly. He can read Kiss of the Spider Woman from memory,” he tells Arregui, promising to take them both into lush, vibrant musical numbers led by the beautiful actress Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez). And while they tell a story of forbidden love, betrayal and fate, perhaps they will have enough parallels to talk about what Molina desperately needs to know.
There's just one problem. Arregui hates musicals.
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“And I feel sorry for you,” Molina quips.
“I’m sorry to break this news,” Arregui retorts. “But no one sings in real life.”
An accurate observation, although completely unrelated to the plot in question. But it does reflect the most common complaints people in real life have about the medium that once completely dominated Hollywood: the concept of supposedly real people breaking out in choreographed song and dance sequences is not, strictly speaking, realistic.
Ignoring the fact that Lord of the Ringsorc battles or Everything everywhere and at onceThe time travel shenanigans aren't entirely realistic either, the suspension of disbelief required to accept Ben Platt suddenly playing show tunes does seem like too high a bar for the seemingly same group of people who say they like all music – except country.
Strengths and weaknesses
What Kiss of the Spider Woman not actually trying to overcome this is both his greatest strength and his most glaring weakness.ess. Its strength lies in its unapologetic love of musicals and classic Hollywood: a key element of this story since its original production and especially since the 1985 film directed by Hector Babenco.
As we enter the musical world of Molina's mind, we see a brightly lit, beautifully surreal staging of everything from Oliver! To Broadway Melody. And when they move into a fairy tale “film-within-a-film” narrative, we are treated to to the impressive musical talents of Arregui and especially Molina.
Even Lopez is well used here: the one-dimensional character she plays in the deliberately light musical plays to her strengths. A seemingly ageless bombshell with significant dancing skills even to this day. she takes just enough screen time to captivate, but never really gives us anything too important to learn.
Instead, the burden falls on Molina, who is more than willing to shoulder the responsibility. Tonatiuh, who is himself non-binary, plays the gender non-conforming Molina with heartbreaking devotion, exploring both the character's male and female identities in monologues about long-lost lovers and facingGuards who spit insults and laugh.
Their performance has already been recognized as revealing. according to the New York Timesand it is still far from premature to guess about ppossible Oscar nominations, matching William Hurt's 1986 win for the same character.
Realism and accessibility
But all this despite the inaccessible, almost painfully stage-theatrical aspects of a truly unapologetic musical film. While Babenko honed his commitment to realism in his early classic docudrama. Pixotthis Spider Woman intensifies to the point of failure.
Director Bill Condon eschews the skillful self-awareness he wrote into Chicagoin which musical numbers helped contrast the fetishization of true crime with the world of show business. He also refuses to learn from something like a Canadian musical. Sleepy escortwhich also used the conceit of a narrator explaining the musical, which the audience then watched.
Use song lyrics for lampshade instead complaints about musicals (reception of anyone who listened to The Bride's Lament: Monkey on a Pedestal understands songs and production well Kiss of the Spider Woman every bit as stilted and occasionally dated as you'd expect from a true golden age musical made today. And what's worse is that they're never that memorable.
And the over-the-top affects and overly dramatic line readings that make up Tonatiuh's performance, stunning as it is, are more like a stage actor performing in the back of the house than a film actor subtly emoting in front of the lens. The result is too much sickly sweetness, at least for those with a limited tolerance for the overly sentimental.
It doesn't mean Kiss of the Spider Woman Either way, it's a light-hearted film. This is far from true: the almost crushingly sentimental prison departments do their best to stifle any smiles. previous musical numbers could inspire. But they do it with a lot of what Spider Woman complete: melodrama without any picky concerns about “realism.”
And that's more than good. No real repeatas a desire exclusively for realism when creating art. But there's so much stigma surrounding musical films that studios have done everything from framing Dear Evan Hansen with shaky camera or stupidly using useless trick with movie actors singing live to achieve some realism. And that means one thing: Kiss of the Spider Woman This is not an entry level musical.
