Bill Condon brought his new version of Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring Jennifer Lopez, to Sundance Fest.
Audiences broke out in spontaneous applause during the screening for Lopez’s song and dance numbers. She plays an old Hollywood screen siren in a movie-within-the movie. The packed Eccles Theater also gave Lopez, wearing a glittery spiderweb themed frock, a standing ovation after the show.
The story revolves around the conversations between two cellmates in an Argentine prison.
It was first a novel by Manuel Puig in 1976 and has been adapted for stage and screen over the years. A 1985 film adaptation, directed by Hector Babenco, starred Raul Julia and William Hurt, who won the Best Actor Oscar for his performance.
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On Broadway, it won multiple Tony Awards.
Condon wrote and directed this new version, which is seeking a distributor. Diego Luna plays an imprisoned revolutionary Valentin Arregui, whose new cellmate Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) loves movies, celebrity and glamour and enthusiastically recounts the story of a favorite movie musical, called “Kiss of the Spider Woman” to Valentin, giving them and the audience a break from their bleak reality.
While the film has memorable moments of escapist spectacle, it also delves into topics of gender identity. Molina tells Valentin that they don’t feel like a man or a woman—which Valentin finds odd at first but grows to understand.
For Condon, “one of the things the movie is about is the attempt to bridge the incredible differences that separate us so often.”
He quoted President Donald Trump’s remarks about two genders (male and female) as official policy.
“That’s a sentiment I think you’ll see that the movie has a different point of view on,” said Condon.
After the film, the discussion of gender identity and tolerance continued. Tonatiuh said it was difficult growing up as a “femme queer Latin kid in a culture that doesn’t necessarily praise those things” and was told that it would be limiting in an acting career.
“I did write that line, ‘I pity people who hate musicals,’” Condon said. “All the things that movies can do can happen in a musical.”
Lopez said it was watching the 1961 Oscar winning musical West Side Story every Thanksgiving on TV that made her want to become a performer.
Lopez said through tears: “Bill Condon made my dreams come true.”
