Rating 5/10
Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel Kiss of the Spider Woman has taken many forms. It’s been nearly 50 years since the book debuted. It evolved from a stage play into an Oscar-winning drama (starring William Hurt), but this property was just getting started. Director Bill Condon’s cinematic adaptation of the 1993 Broadway musical by Kander, Ebb, and McNally invites Jennifer Lopez to step into the Spider Woman’s gown, turning a story set in a prison cell into a meditation on escape.
The year is 1981, during the final years of a brutal military dictatorship in Argentina known as the “Dirty War.” Luis Molina is a gay window dresser imprisoned for public indecency. Valentín Arregui Paz is a hardened Marxist revolutionary in jail for crimes against the state. Forced to share a cell, the two men initially clash. However, they gradually form a bond as Molina passes the time recounting his favorite Hollywood production: an escapist fantasy about a glamorous publisher, her lovers, and a mystical Spider Woman.
The Rocky Horror Show, Sweeney Todd, Les Misérables, Carrie: Many dark stories have been an odd foundation for big, splashy musicals. Manuel Puig’s novel is certainly one of them. Amid grim scenes of confinement, we cut away to lavish numbers featuring Jennifer Lopez in three different roles. As Ingrid Luna, she’s a glamorous 1940s star whose performances captivate the imprisoned Molina. Aurora is the character Molina recounts in his picture: a powerful magazine publisher torn between love and fear. Then there’s the Spider Woman, the symbol of beauty and death, luring men to their fate with a fatal kiss.
The 1985 film version of Kiss of the Spider Woman was a stark, dialogue-heavy drama centered almost entirely on the bond shared by two disparate prisoners. Their connection under oppressive conditions was the focus. By contrast, the 2025 staging shifts toward spectacle and performance. The core relationship linking Molina, portrayed here by Tonatiuh, and Valentín, played by Diego Luna, remains intact. Still, the drama frequently cuts away to elaborate, choreographed sequences led by Jennifer Lopez in her triple role. These production numbers express Molina’s yearning for escape, with the storyteller casting Valentín as Armand and himself as Kendall Nesbitt in the movie within the movie. Both sing and dance alongside Lopez.
Lopez is adequate. She radiates charisma, though her thin voice isn’t Broadway-caliber. “Jenny from the Block” never makes us forget we’re always watching a star perform a role. That has more to do with her omnipresence in the media than with her actual abilities. She has undeniable star quality. Diego Luna can’t sing or dance at her level, but Tonatiuh more than delivers. His warm, compelling voice and expressive movement bridge the boundary linking artifice with reality.
Director Bill Condon has the chops to make this a success. His adaptations of Beauty and the Beast and Dreamgirls were both massive hits. Add in the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago), and my expectations were understandably high. The mark of any great musical isn’t really the plot, it’s the song-and-dance numbers. Give me five memorable showstoppers surrounded by a weak narrative, and I’m still happy. I wasn’t familiar with the 1993 Broadway version, though I know it won the Tony Award for Best Musical. When this was over, however, I would have been hard-pressed to recall any of its tunes. They were pleasant enough in the moment, but faded quickly from memory.
Perhaps this picture plays better for those already fond of the stage incarnation. If that’s you, then by all means, enjoy. All others may skip this forgettable dramatization, and that’s coming from a reviewer who is particularly fond of musicals.
10-15-25