Cinema has never been shy about self-mythologizing. If ever there were a project that could lay claim to the “magic of movies,” it might be “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” The very subject of Bill Condon’s adaptation of the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical is the power of the silver screen to both explain and reshape reality. The problem inherent in such a premise is that a film about the magic of the medium has to also exemplify it, and that’s something this movie musical only achieves in fits and starts.
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For those who love the brightly lit, classically staged productions popularized under the mid-century MGM banner, rejoice—for this looks nothing like Jon M. Chu’s backlit atrocities in “Wicked.” Condon’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman” delivers on the old-school charms that create such a devoted disciple out of Luis Molina (Tonatiuh). He stages numbers that play out dance routines in long, fluid takes that allow cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler to capture the skillfulness of the dancers engaging in their elaborate choreography. Editor Brian A. Kates introduces some shot variety that makes it a little bit more dynamic, yet he weaves them in skillfully so as not to make the scenes little more than music videos.
Keeping that delicate rhythm is crucial in scenes without music, too. The film shifts seamlessly between the Technicolor reveries drawn from Molina’s movie memories and his drab, dour reality inside an Argentinean prison. He’s thrown in the pen by the country’s brutal dictatorship and left to rot with the left-wing dissident Valentín (Diego Luna) who wears his persecution like a badge of honor. Dwelling in that pain simply won’t do for Molina, a regular Scheherazade of the cell block, as he reenacts his favorite movie musical for a captive audience.
In this iteration of the fictional Golden Age musical melodrama – also named “Kiss of the Spider Woman”—Molina is not content just to tell the story. He projects himself into it alongside his favorite actress Ingrid Luna, played by Jennifer Lopez. This casting could easily have gone sideways as a cheap stunt, but Lopez gives her all to prove she’s there to do more than just lend her iconography. It’s a shame that Ingrid exists as pure performance without true characterization, but her powerful presence booms throughout “Kiss of the Spider Woman” all the same. Whether belting out the film’s eleven-o-clock-number or tearing up a dance floor, she’s entirely believable as a movie star who could become an object of such vivid fantasy.
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Molina’s vision is such that it’s not only he who beams into the story, reinterpreting a queer-coded character in a way that allows him to speak the subtext. Much to his cellmate’s chagrin, Valentín also enters the story to woo Aurora, Ingrid Luna’s character within the film. His caustic commentary interrupting the whole enterprise is a clever gambit for Condon’s script. He’s a perfect entry point into “Kiss of the Spider Woman” for anyone who hates movie musicals.
Those who already love them need no such convincing. of course. Tonatiuh’s breakout performance embodies what cinephilia means. For people who seek refuge from the horrors of life, movies are a portal to a better world. “Kiss of the Spider Woman” takes that a step further with its vivid realization of a symbiosis that can occur between the spectator and the story. As events in each timeline begin to mirror and influence each other, it conjures a vision of cinema as a participatory art that can shine a light in a dark time. The interplay jolts the film with excitement each time the two storylines rub off on each other, most notably in Valentín’s gradual softening and awakening.
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” is at its best when giving itself over to Molina’s imagination, but it can’t always sustain the energy of Tonatiuh’s devoted turn. All the fun escapism of the movie within a movie gives way to a tale dominated by such intense emotions as attraction, repulsion, and survival. But while the film often declares these things in bombastic lyricism, the whole project itself feels largely absent of deep passion. It doesn’t really even boast an undeniable show-stopping number worth raving about after the credits roll.
Condon’s conducting of the whole affair is technically competent … dazzling, even, in sections. But all that flashiness is not blinding enough to conceal the gap between the tune it sings and the routine it dances. That is to say: “Kiss of the Spider Woman” may be about movie magic, but the film itself isn’t always magic. [B]