Sundance 2025 Review: KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN, Politics, Queerness, and Jennifer Lopez

As countries on both sides of the Atlantic careen uncontrollably towards illiberalism, authoritarian, and fascism, art as an act of resistance, opposition, or defiance gains ever greater importance.

 

That includes an oft-adapted work, such as Manuel Puig’s 1976 postmodern novel, Kiss of the Spider Woman, which was initially banned in Argentina under the then-current military dictatorship, adapted for the stage in 1983 by Puig himself, adapted into an Oscar-winning film helmed by Hector Babenco (Pixote) two years later, adapted into a commercially successful, Tony Award-winning stage musical in 1993, and now, not exactly coming full circle, adapted into a new, stunningly realized cinematic adaptation, written and directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls, Kinsey, Gods and Monsters).

 

Following previous interpretations of Puig’s tale, Kiss of the Spider Woman broadly centers on Valentín Arregui (Diego Luna), a leftist detained for political activism against the military regime, and Luis Molina (Tonatiuh), a queer prisoner arrested for “public indecency” (“corruption of a minor” in previous versions). Unalike in worldviews, temperaments, and interests, Molina and Valentín are badly matched, thrown together in the same jail cell by a calculating, shrewd prison warden.

 

Molina’s move from another jail cell to Valentín’s isn’t accidental; it’s intentional. Where Valentín stubbornly refuses to break under torture, a softer, gentler approach (i.e., Molina) might work.

 

At least initially, Valentín responds with reflexive disgust to Molina’s presence in his cell, the result of anti-LGBTQ+ social conditioning. He might be a revolutionary in his own mind, fighting for right over wrong (the working class over the military and fascist-aligned elites), but his Marxist ideology doesn’t include anyone outside “traditional” male-female roles like Molina, identified here as gay, but trans by more enlightened 21st-century standards. Valentín openly mocks Molina, dismissing the latter’s apolitical stance and frivolity, specifically Molina’s cheery escapism into the films of Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez), a decades-old movie star who imprinted herself on Molina at an early age.

 

As Valentín slowly, almost imperceptibly becomes a willing, even eager listener to Molina’s fancifully embroidered storytelling, a second, film-within-a-film emerges, the titular title. Luna plays a fashionista of the highest order, Molina her besotted assistant, and Valentín an amorous photographer who journeys with Aurora to her birthplace and his, a small, out-of-the-way Argentinian town controlled by a ruthless thug and his goons, paralleling Molina and Valentín’s oppressive experiences under the military regime. Love within the imagined film, when it arrives in delirious Technicolor fashion, seems doomed to failure and tragedy (as with Molina and Valentín).

 

To Condon’s considerable credit as a filmmaker, he trusts the audience on the other side of the screen to follow Molina and Valentín’s burgeoning relationship, one based on need first, want second, without stopping the film to give it a name, place parameters around, or simply define it. It evolves organically, surprisingly for those unfamiliar with the source material or previous adaptations, unsurprisingly for those who are, but with even greater subtlety, wit, and empathy than previous versions of Molina and Valentín’s tragedy-filled story.

 

Gorgeously shot by cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler, directed with throw-back, old-school flair by Condon, and expertly choreographed to sonorous Latin-American rhythms, the film-within-a-film sequences can practically stand on their own as a mini-film. Even as those scenes reflect and refract developments in Molina and Valentín’s relationship, including the growing threat from the military regime and its representatives within the prison system, they offer Lopez, Luna, and Tonatiuh the opportunity to showcase different sides of their talents as performers.

 

Playing a hyper-heightened version of her onscreen persona, Lopez shines brightly as Aurora in the film-within-a-film and as Aurora’s doppelgänger, the Spider Woman of the title. Luna handles the demands of the more restrained role as Valentín and Armando (in the film-within-a-film) admirably, evoking sympathy for his revolutionary idealist in the “real” world and the lovestruck Armando elsewhere.

 

It’s Tonatiuh, however, who remarkably emerges as Kiss of the Spider Woman’s standout performer. There’s practically nothing Tonatiuh can’t do and do well, from the more feminine, flamboyant presenting Molina to his more more masculine, subdued counterpart in the film-within-a-film. Tonatiuh’s fine singing voice elevates the stage musical’s songs from passable to simply put, extraordinary, imbuing the songs with deep reservoirs of feeling, emotion, and color.