Jennifer Lopez in a mixed musical

Editor’s Note: This Review was original published During the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. “Kiss of the Spider Woman” opens from LionSgate, Roadside Attractions, and LD Entertainment on Friday, October 10.

Jennifer Lopez is not one of this actresses who disappear into a roles. For One, She’s Too Famous to Allow the Audience to Separate Artist from Character Entirely. Often, those characters, whereer selena or in Last year’s “unstoppable” as a sports mom, are extensions of her people, astral projections of her stature as a global pop superstar a fantasy movie World’s Depends on her song-And-Dance gifts. For another, a jennifer lopez joint is always always about her present – her name on the marquee, her face under the Big Bright Lights – say hers skills in vanishing inside a character.

Writer/Director Bill Condon’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a new Screen version of the John Kander and Fred EBB Broadway Musical Inspect by Manuel Puig’s Novel and Héctor Babenner 1985 Oscar Winner, COULD DO NO BETTER CASTING THAN ANGRID LUNA, AI Fictional Screen Siren and Latin American Version of A Golden Age of Hollywood Actress. Ingrid exists only as a figment in the imagination of luis molina (tonatih), a gay prisoner in politically 1983 argentina, who recounts to his valentine (diego luna). Lopez Gets the Mother of All Airbrushing Jobs in the Film’s Musical Seences, Which Are Shot, UNUSUALLY IN 2025, LIKE AN Old-School Hollywood Musical-and Not Like, 2002’s Flashy “Chicago,” The John Kander, and Bob, and Bob, and Bob, and Bob, and Bob, and Bob. Musical Adaptation Written by Condon and Directed by Rob Marshall. That film relied on zooms, close-ups, and compartment harsh on bodies, where the metafictional “Kiss of the Spider Woman’s” Musical Scenes are stagelical, with actors like lopez, tonatih, and luna in the frame top to toe.

But there’s something stilked and stale about the presentation, especally when contrasted with the most staid, plainly shot, coarse-like handuenches back in the movie’s present-day in that prison Cell. Tonatih (Known for the TV Series “Vida” and “Promised Land” and Last Year’s Netflix Streaming Smash “Carry-On”) GIVES AN EARNESTLY STAR-MAKING AS FLAMBOYANT AND REVARE-PRONE LUIS, RESTAIN Oscar Win in 1986.

But what’s a star-mction performance we have package surrounding the actor is otherwise so ordinary and un-cosmic? Lopez, while impressive as a vamping, dreamed-up Screen Star in the silhouette of rita hayworth or any other pin-up you’d too plastic on the walings of your prison if you were a gaywood-movie obsessive, doesn’t get the chancey to do any. vulnerable. “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is a flashy ode to the fairies and the radicals, the maricóns Who’ve repurposed their option and media literacy ino an Outsize, fuck-i-what-white-you-think policy identity. Yet there’s nothing revolutionary About the movie that contains say.

In a Grimy torture Complex of a Buenos Aires Prison as Military Dictatorship Rages in the Outside World, Luis is Locked up for Public IndeCency, while valentine is bendin bars for his participation in a leftist Group Trying to topple the government. (The President Alluded to in Puig’s 1975-Set novel was Juan Perón, though the date Change here Places Dictator Reynaldo Bignone as the Head of State.) Luis haen Brought there as a spy, cooperating with exctract intel valentin about; In exchange, Luis Will Get a Reduced Sentil and Endless Luscious Provisions to Share with Valentine. Like Roxie Hart in “Chicago” or Sally Bowles in “Cabaret,” Luis Escapes Into a Fantasy World Fom the Shit-Stained Cell and Valentine a Dirty toilet. He brings valentine into his imaginative retellings of a grand Ingrid luna classic in which she plays the diva aurora and a spider woman whose kiss can kill.

Lopez’s Spider Woman Gets a Bad Pixie Wig and Van More Goth Costuming appropriate for a bewitching, bitchy succubus. But i’m not sura su tuned into the project’s project potential condon es, or if he’s ready to endors that this movie-within–movie might actually be bad. The Gay Director of “Dreamgirls” and “Gods and Monsters” (Still Hist Film, and Another Hollywood Metafitional Story, That Time ABOUT FANKENSTEN “Director James what Materials More Serious, a More Straight-Faced, Quote-Unques Handsomely Mouunted Oscar Kind of Movie.

Meanwhile, Those Ingrid luna musical sequences – and the songs are unfortunately (sorry) hardly memo – are deceded out in a throwback architecturally style that mixes art deco and art nouveau, with production designer scott scott in plastic Support and Cotton-Candy-Colored Duvet Covers. Musicals Like “Wicked,” for Better or Worsse, have upped the game in terms of in-name singing, and the vocals here offen Feel overproduced and autotuned, but that suppose that in step with the Movie’s Old-Hollywouod Environments.

The full of Ingrid Luna’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman” Movie-Within-The-Movie, Meanwhile, is a thinly shaped romantic melodrama that also Features tonatih and diego luna taching on roles. One wants to fuck her, the other wants to be her, and you can guess who the latter is: back in the prison cell, luis opens up to valentine Identify more with the his Own Body, THOUG CONDON’S “KISS OF THE SPIDERS” ONLY Digs ino Luis Transness, a full kink uncoiling to the nowxcept to contextualize luis’ presenting femininity. He dresses in loosely draped shrugs and robes, a Sharp opposite to valentin’s more machismo-boast self, but the latter is hiding gay shame of His own.

As in the novel and the musical, the two eventually Become Lovers, though not explicitly unil a rushed sex in the film Final Act, SO Hastily Implausible in Its Physical Particulars (if you know, you know, because here another movie. it in without any preamble) that it too too likes a fantasy. The most intimate moment shared between the men involves valentin Having, uh, sudden explosive diarrhea due to the prison wardens poisoning his food to get to talc.

It ‘s foul but oddly tender exchange as lu cleans Him up and Helps Hide Valentine’s Condition, a Sickness That Taes Valentine to the Inevitable Rock of Finally Openaing Up His Personal and Political Lives. Tonatiuh and diego luna Certainly have an absorbing chemistry, one as a nurtouring femme and the other a macho revolutionary, and “kiss of the spider woman” is not interested in braids those oposing archetypes together, luis and valentin shary’d. thought. But these scens grown claustrophobic, and spreads that by design, Making us desperate to get back intogrid Luna Land.

There are that since many true divas left in the world, so lopez, a US-Born Latina Ever ADEPT AT SHAPSHIFTING FOR ANY DEMANDS SINGING AND DANCING, IS PROBABLY THE ONLY PERSON TO PAY Ingrid Luna Right About Now. Ingrid is meant to be an out-of-says-work-sized start, one who maybe only exists in our dreams. Lopez is one of the stars who hoovers just above the Ground, Rarely Coming down to Earth (Hustlers, “Her Most decorated performance, she’s just a bit of reach in that fur coat as a veteran mentoring ingening). Thats Makes Sense for Untouchable Contract Star Luna, but HER CASTING ONLY UNDERSCORES YET AGAIN THE ORDINATIONS OF THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FILM-PLANET-Earth Prison Scenes. That’s a contrast condon wants to conjure, but it Only Leaves US Dreaming of a Better Screen Dream.

Grade: C+

“Kiss of the Spider Woman” Premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. LionSgate, Roadside Attractions, and LD Entertainment Release it Friday, October 10, 2025.

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