Kiss of The Spider Woman Spins a Tale, Sings a Song

Sundance Film Review: Kiss of the Spider Woman
Director: Bill Condon
1000 Eyes, Artists Equity, Josephson Entertainment
Premiere: 01.26

On Sunday night in Park City, director Bill Condon made his triumphant return to the Sundance Film Festival, where he first made his mark in 1998 with Gods and Monsters and promptly called out a monster who thinks he’s a God. As he introduced the premiere of his new musical Kiss of The Spider Woman, Condon read from President Donald Trump’s executive order stating that there are only two genders of male and female, assigned at birth. Condon wryly added “I think you’ll see that this film takes a different point of view.”

In an Argentinian prison in the early ‘80s, during the Dirty War, two unlikely cellmates form a fragile bond. Luis Molina (Tonatiuh, Carry-On) is a gay window dresser serving time for alleged unspecified sex crimes with a male, and is also Molina (who prefers to identify as she/her, even if the only people in the prison who recognize this do so with scathing contempt). Molina has two lifelines: one is her ailing mother, and the other is the magic of the cinema. Molina escapes the grim reality of imprisonment by recounting classic films starring her favorite screen diva, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez, Out of Sight, Hustlers). Valentín Arregui (Diego Luna, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, If Beale Street Could Talk), a tortured Marxist revolutionary, initially bristles at Molina’s flamboyant personality, incessant talking and seemingly frivolous world view, yet grows dependent on her tender care after brutal interrogations. Molina regales Valentín with his favorite movie, Kiss of The Spider Woman. As Molina tells the story of lovers caught in the web of a dangerous femme fatale, she imagines himself and Valentín in the leading roles. Days go by, and the connection between the two cellmates deepens considerably as they form a strong bond rooted in their shared humanity, longing and despair. Molina has a secret, however: she’s been assigned by the Warden (Bruno Bichir, Bandidos, Women in Blue) to get Valentín to spill secrets about his comrades and their plan, in exchange for a chance at early parole to see her ailing mother. Though Molina sees herself as apolitical, the job becomes increasingly more difficult, as she finds herself weighed down by conscience and love.

Condon’s previous film musicals range from critical darlings such as Chicago (on which Condon served as screenwriter) and Dreamgirls to the live-action Beauty and the Beast. However, as the director himself stated on stage at the Eccles Center, Kiss of The Spider Woman was the musical he was born to bring to the screen. From the first frame to the last, the director’s passionate vision is mesmerizing. The stark contrast between the dank, cramped prison cells and the lush, vibrant sequences inside the world of the cinema (which is where the film becomes a musical) is magically transportive, and Condon has created two distinct and vivid worlds in which his players act. I’m generally put off by musical adaptations of films, and though Kiss of the Spider Woman is first and foremost an adaptation of Manuel Puig’s novel, Héctor Babenco’s 1985 film is a significant part of cinema history. It’s also a deeply problematic film that has aged poorly, and Condon’s version is superior in every respect, with deeper characterizations, a great deal more authenticity and capturing the power of the movies to take you to different places in a way that Babenco’s film wasn’t able to achieve.

Perhaps most significantly, the biggest improvement over the 1985 “straight” (pun intended) version of Kiss and The Spider Woman comes in the difference between William Hurt’s cringe-inducingly miscast and pretentious (though Oscar-winning) portrayal of Molina, and the towering performance of Tonatiuh in the role. It’s not just that we have an actor who is both queer and Latinx in the role this time; it’s that we have a dazzling superstar in the making. Tonatiuh embraces the character’s trans identity and injects life, believability, vulnerability and charisma into the role. In the film-within-a-film sequences, Tonatiuh becomes Victor Nesbit, the secretary of the sensational socialite Aurora (Lopez), and the film is at its most powerful the more the lines starts to blur and Molina starts to literally take over the role, making it his own!

Lopez gives the performance of her career, with a dazzling energy and star presence that ignites the screen. After the film, Lopez declared from the Eccles stage that she’s been waiting her whole life for this moment, and her performance was worth the wait. Luna has consistently proven to be a commanding and versatile actor since his debut in Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 breakthrough Y tu mamá también (literally translated, And your mother too), and is fantastic in the roles of Valentín and Armandom, Aurora’s love interest. Despite Hurt’s Oscar, Luna had a tougher job in stepping into the shoes of the late great Raul Julia, and he proves himself to be more than up to the task.

Kiss of The Spider Woman is a grand and powerful musical extravaganza that will be remembered both as the glossy, star-spangled spectacle of the festival, as well as Sundance’s deliberate counterpoint to opening week of Trump 2.0 (Festival Director Eugene Hernandez revealed that they viewed the film the day after the election and promptly invited Condon to premiere it in Park City), but it’s more than either of those things. It’s a magnificent, immersive experience about what it means to be human, to love and be loved, and the important role that movies can serve in seeing us through the darkest of times. Spider Woman, Spider Woman, reminds us all that we’re human. Spins a tale, sings a song, with this film you can’t go wrong. Look out, here comes the Spider Woman! —Patrick Gibbs

Read more of SLUG’s coverage of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival