Dreams do still come true, it seems. On Sunday night in Park City, Utah, the big “hot ticket” screening was the world premiere of Bill Condon’s much-anticipated “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a dazzling big screen adaptation of Terrence McNally, John Kander, and Fred Ebb’s 1992 Broadway musical of the same name (itself a take on Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel of the same name). While the story, about a pair of Argentinian prisoners who are brought together during the “Dirty War,” was previously made into a feature film in 1995 with stars William Hurt, Raul Julia, and Sônia Braga, Condon’s film marks the first big screen musical spin on the original material.
And, for star Jennifer Lopez, starring in a musical — her very first, if you can believe it — was the culmination of decades of dreaming. The film, which stars breakout star Tonatiuh as Luis Molina (a flamboyant young Argentine tossed into prison for inappropriate acts with another man, but who dreams of one day being a woman) and Diego Luna as a political prisoner named Valentin Arregui (Molina’s initially reserved cellmate), debuted at the Eccles Theatre to massive applause during the film and a standing ovation after. Afterwards, visibly moved and teary Lopez took the stage with Condon and Tonatiuh to chat with festival head Eugene Hernandez.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life,” Lopez said, choking up. “The reason I even wanted to be in this business is because my mom would sit me in front of the TV and [‘West Side Story’] would come on once a year, on Thanksgiving. I was mesmerized and was like, ‘That’s what I want to do.’ That was always my goal, and this is the first time that I actually got to do it. This man made my dream come true.”
In the film, Molina attempts to bond with the reticent Valentin by sharing a story about his favorite film (the titular “Kiss of the Spider Woman”) and the screen siren Ingrid Luna (Lopez) who starred in this razzle-dazzle musical that has so enamored him. As Molina shares his vivid memories of the film, Lopez (and Luna and Tonatiuh in other roles) plays Ingrid as she plays the delightful screen character Aurora in the fake film. (We promise all this meta-entertainment makes sense in context.) Thus, Condon’s film is both a gritty prison drama and a full-blooded Technicolor musical.
As IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio wrote in his review of the film, “There aren’t that many true divas left in the world, so Lopez, a U.S.-born Latina ever adept at shapeshifting for any role that demands singing and dancing, is probably the only person to play Ingrid Luna right about now. Ingrid is meant to be an out-of-this-world-sized star, one who maybe only exists in our dreams. Lopez is one of those stars who hovers just above the ground, rarely coming down to Earth (even in ‘Hustlers,’ her most decorated performance, she’s just a bit out of reach in that fur coat as a veteran stripper mentoring ingenues).”
Of the message of the film, Lopez later added, “Love can kind of shorten the gap of any divide between people. We could just look at each other … as individuals, as people, as human beings and not worry about who you like, who you don’t like, what your political beliefs are. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. There’s another human on the other side of you and you will find something in common with them. You are both human and you both have a heart. And that, to me, is something that was so important when I read the movie and why I wanted to be part of it.”
“Kiss of the Spider Woman” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
