Desires do nonetheless come true, it appears. On Sunday night time in Park Metropolis, Utah, the massive “sizzling ticket” screening was the world premiere of Invoice Condon’s much-anticipated “Kiss of the Spider Lady,” a blinding massive display adaptation of Terrence McNally, John Kander, and Fred Ebb’s 1992 Broadway musical of the identical title (itself a tackle Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel of the identical title). Whereas the story, a couple of pair of Argentinian prisoners who’re introduced collectively through the “Soiled Struggle,” was beforehand made right into a function movie in 1995 with stars William Harm, Raul Julia, and Sônia Braga, Condon’s movie marks the primary massive display musical spin on the unique materials.
And, for star Jennifer Lopez, starring in a musical — her very first, if you happen to can consider it — was the end result of a long time of dreaming. The movie, which stars breakout star Tonatiuh as Luis Molina (a flamboyant younger Argentine tossed into jail for inappropriate acts with one other man, however who goals of someday being a lady) and Diego Luna as a political prisoner named Valentin Arregui (Molina’s initially reserved cellmate), debuted on the Eccles Theatre to huge applause through the movie and a standing ovation after. Afterwards, visibly moved and teary Lopez took the stage with Condon and Tonatiuh to talk with competition head Eugene Hernandez.
“I’ve been ready for this second my complete life,” Lopez mentioned, choking up. “The explanation I even needed to be on this enterprise is as a result of my mother would sit me in entrance of the TV and [‘West Side Story’] would come on every year, on Thanksgiving. I used to be mesmerized and was like, ‘That’s what I need to do.’ That was all the time my objective, and that is the primary time that I really received to do it. This synthetic my dream come true.”
Within the movie, Molina makes an attempt to bond with the reticent Valentin by sharing a narrative about his favourite movie (the titular “Kiss of the Spider Lady”) and the display siren Ingrid Luna (Lopez) who starred on this razzle-dazzle musical that has so enamored him. As Molina shares his vivid recollections of the movie, Lopez (and Luna and Tonatiuh in different roles) performs Ingrid as she performs the pleasant display character Aurora within the faux movie. (We promise all this meta-entertainment is smart in context.) Thus, Condon’s movie is each a gritty jail drama and a full-blooded Technicolor musical.
As IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio wrote in his overview of the movie, “There aren’t that many true divas left on the planet, so Lopez, a U.S.-born Latina ever adept at shapeshifting for any function that calls for singing and dancing, might be the one particular person to play Ingrid Luna proper about now. Ingrid is supposed to be an out-of-this-world-sized star, one who possibly solely exists in our goals. Lopez is a type of stars who hovers simply above the bottom, not often coming right down to Earth (even in ‘Hustlers,’ her most embellished efficiency, she’s only a bit out of attain in that fur coat as a veteran stripper mentoring ingenues).”
Of the message of the movie, Lopez later added, “Love can type of shorten the hole of any divide between individuals. We might simply take a look at one another … as people, as individuals, as human beings and never fear about who you want, who you don’t like, what your political opinions are. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. There’s one other human on the opposite facet of you and you can see one thing in widespread with them. You’re each human and also you each have a coronary heart. And that, to me, is one thing that was so essential after I learn the film and why I needed to be a part of it.”
“Kiss of the Spider Lady” premiered on the 2025 Sundance Movie Pageant. It’s at the moment in search of U.S. distribution.