Review: Kiss of the Spider Woman—It's J.Lo's World, but Tonatiuh's Movie

Kiss of the Spider Woman—the musical by Terrence McNally, Fred Ebb, and John Kander, based on the novel by Manuel Puig—has a checkered past. A famously dismal “workshop” at SUNY Purchase in 1990 may have given way to a Tony-winning Broadway run in 1993, but it’s hardly become one of the trio’s most popular titles, forever inching close to major revivals but never crossing the finish line.

To give Kiss of the Spider Woman a new life, writer-director Bill Condon bypassed the stage route altogether: he got Jennifer Lopez to star in and produce this new musical film adaptation, with producers also including her super-ex Ben Affleck, his bestie Matt Damon, and McNally’s widower, Tom Kirdahy. For this property, you need a superstar that you can’t take your eyes off, and Condon certainly has that in Lopez. But he also has it in Tonatiuh, playing the willowy prisoner Luis Molina, who conjures visions of Lopez in his mind (honestly, who doesn’t?).

Condon divides his film into two worlds. The first is the Argentine prison where political prisoner Valentin Arregui (Diego Luna) is forced to bunk with Molina, a queer window dresser locked up on obscenity charges. To pass the time, Molina recounts his favorite Hollywood picture, Kiss of the Spider Woman, in which the Latin American silver screen diva Ingrid Luna (Lopez) plays a damsel doomed by fate.

From that story within the story, Condon spins the web of his second cinematic world, a lush, MGM-style Technicolor musical fantasy that comes to life in Molina and Valentin’s minds (and imaginarily casts them in supporting roles). Of course, there’s more to it than meets the eye—and no one can escape the Spider Woman’s inevitable kiss of death.

In building Kiss of the Spider Woman proper, Condon borrows a concept from earlier Kander and Ebb screen adaptations. Like in Chicago (which Condon wrote for the screen; Rob Marshall directed) and Cabaret (famously helmed by Bob Fosse), the musical numbers exist only onstage or within the imagination, so the prison-set songs like “Dressing Them Up” and “Anything for Him” are gone. Instead, Condon has mined the show’s earliest drafts for three long-forgotten numbers that give Lopez room to strut in full Chita Rivera mode.

For Lopez, it’s the performance of a lifetime, one that allows her to go full-on vamp in Colleen Atwood’s glitzy costumes. She moves through Sergio Trujillo’s high-voltage choreography with effortless precision, her entire body framed in motion by cinematographer Tobias Schliessler, who knows how to capture dancers in all their sculptural glory. Lopez reminds us why she’s an international megastar. From the first moment she appears onscreen, you can’t take your eyes off her.

In an instant, you understand how Tonatiuh’s gentle Molina and Luna’s steely Valentin could fall under her spell in two very different methods of imaginary escape. And because their performances are brimming with chemistry and tension, you simultaneously understand who Molina and Valentin can fall under each other’s spell at the same time.

While Lopez is the marquee attraction, it’s Tonatiuh who gives the film its soul. Imbuing Molina with a complex mix of camp, fragility, and strong survivalist instincts, he steals the show right out from under his more seasoned co-stars. Especially in his shattering final scenes—which provide a crucial and deeply impactful change in lyric from Ebb’s original material— Tonatiuh is an absolute knockout, a star-making performance in a musical that’s not for everyone, but was definitely worth the wait.