Musicals are a tried and true genre in the film world, with a number of movie musicals winning the Best Picture Oscar over the years. Chief among them is Bill Condon’s Chicago (streaming with a Paramount+ subscription), and the filmmaker is back behind the camera for the film adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman. And both the acclaimed director and them movie’s star Tonatiuh spoke to CinemaBlend about the hate that the genre often gets.
JLo has been getting a ton of love for Kiss of the Spider Woman, which put the global superstar’s singing and dancing skills on display. As you can see from the video above, I had the chance to speak with Condon and the cast ahead of its release this weekend. I asked the Oscar-winning filmmaker his reaction to folks who just can’t get into musicals, to which he responded:
‘I pity you’ as Molina says, that’s a line I wrote. Right? You know, it’s so frustrating, isn’t it? I have theories about, especially in movies, why people can’t get into it. One of them is, I think they were forced. I think people recoil from the idea that people are gonna express love to each other in a song. You know, it just seems too icky in some way, you know? And also I think often when they’re not done well, it feels like everything stops for a song. It’s like, ‘Do we have to wait for the, oh God, here comes another’. Diego’s character at one point says, you know, Molina says ‘She sings’ and he says, ‘Oh no.’ You know, and things like that.
He’s not wrong. I’ve always been a musical theater nerd, and was brought up watching classics like The Sound of Music with my family. But for folks who don’t have that background, sometimes the idea of breaking out into song in the middle of a scene can be hard to wrap one’s head around. And if the musical is bad, songs can really slow down the action of the narrative… especially for critics of the genre.
Bill Condon has been praising Jennifer Lopez’s performance on Kiss of the Spider Woman, which has the potential to get her Awards Season attention following the Oscars snubbing her for Hustlers. Later in our conversation, the Beauty and the Beast director went on to speak about the power of musical numbers, saying:
But I’m hoping that as you, if you take the ride, if you get over that hurdle and you take the ride, and then you start to see that, my god the ‘The kiss Of The Spider Woman’ number is actually amplifying the love making that’s happening between these two people. That you understand that, oh no, it can actually lift everything. There’s a thrill to it, you know? And there’s stuff going on even while people are singing.
Points were made. Rather than stopping the action of Kiss of the Spider Woman, Kander and Ebb’s songs actually move the story forward. They offer insight about who the characters are, and show the way that Tonatiuh’s Molina and Diego Luna’s Valentin are getting closer within their bleak prison cell.
Tonatiuh himself also spoke to me about the hate that musicals often get online and from folks who simply don’t like the genre. The Vida actor mused on the bad wrap that these types of projects get, saying:
Listen, I think that musicals are one of the most hated upon genres. Um, no, because in in essence, people think that they’re, they’re very surface level, right? But I think that musicals are incredibly subversive because they do entertain you. But the messaging and themes of a lot of musicals are actually quite like powerful.
For some folks out there, the idea of characters breaking into song is something they can’t get over. But while naysayers might not like to see musical numbers, Tonatiuh makes a solid argument about the way songs can get to the heart of the story in projects like Kiss of the Spider Woman.
For this particular project, the musical numbers are a technicolor fantasy that help Molina and Valentin distract themselves from their grueling life in prison. The actor spoke more about why that was important to the movie’s story, telling me:
But the beauty of our film is that you get to experience two things at the same time. You get a serious drama and you get these calm, fun musical numbers to like rip you away from the horrors of the world. Because both things have to exist. We otherwise we’re gonna be depressed.
Touche. Kiss of the Spider Woman‘s story can be pretty grueling at times, especially when Valentin and Molina are being tortured in prison. The musical numbers bring magic and joy to the movie, standing in stark juxtaposition to high stakes situation that its main characters are in. That’s what makes Kiss of the Spider Woman such a unique and moving stage musical, and Bill Condon flexed those Chicago muscles to bring it to the big screen.
Kiss of the Spider Woman will hit theaters on October 10th as part of the 2025 movie release list. As such moviegoers can see if they agree with what Condon and Tonatiuh said about the movie’s musical numbers.