Is it possible to enjoy a movie musical while actively disliking its songs?
It is with “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” which proves the durability of a good story – and story within a story – no matter how many generic John Kander and Fred Ebb songs, weakly performed by Jennifer Lopez, come with it.
Playing a movie star beloved by an Argentine prisoner (breakout star Tonatiuh, from Starz’s “Vida”), Lopez dances beautifully but fails to instill passion or poignancy into songs from the 1993 musical from which the movie derives. What would be a showcase for a stronger singer instead exposes Lopez’s lack of range.
Directed and written by Bill Condon (“Chicago,” “Dreamgirls”), “Kiss of the Spider Woman” adapts the Tony-winning Broadway show based on Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel, and dazzles with its choreography and production design. It also should lead to even bigger things for Tonatiuh, who gives the movie a soulful heart.
Tonatiuh, left, and Diego Luna in a scene from “Kiss of The Spider Woman.”
Tonatiuh plays Molina, a gay man sharing a cell with straight political prisoner Valentin (Diego Luna of “Andor“). Together, the pair “watch” a B-grade Hollywood musical starring Molina’s favorite, Ingrid Luna (Lopez), as a fashion magazine editor and the mythical Spider Woman who curses her. As Molina vividly describes the movie, Condon brings it to Technicolor life.
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3 stars
“Kiss of the Spider Woman”: Musical. Starring Tonatiuh, Diego Luna and Jennifer Lopez. Directed by Bill Condon. (R. 128 minutes). In theaters Friday, Oct. 10.
Puig’s novel previously became a non-musical 1985 film starring William Hurt as Molina. Hurt won a best actor Oscar, and if there is any justice, Tonatiuh will at least receive a nomination. His Molina is a well of exuberance, kindness and hard-won self-respect.
Although set in 1983, the movie is informed by modern sensibilities. This Molina is no longer riddled with internalized homophobia and is more grounded in reality. He knows his movie “telling” is an escape from grim surroundings, just as he knows his growing feelings for his cellmate should not be voiced – so as not to disturb their rapport – but rather incorporated into a version of the movie within a movie that only he can see, with Valentin as leading man.
Molina identifies more with the leading lady. When he summons the courage to voice to Valentin his desire to be a woman in real life, you wish Molina lived in a different time and place (although, sadly, not the United States in 2025), where trans people were more accepted.
Emanating intelligence and sensitivity, Luna plays Valentin as less reflexively macho than most men of his time yet still bound by binary ideas of gender. It plays as authentic, and not particularly cruel, when Valentin dismisses Molina’s desire to be a woman. Valentin protests that Molina is a man, because Valentin is working from the idea masculinity equates to strength – what Molina needs to survive their harsh surroundings.
At the same time, Luna always shows Valentin’s quiet delight with his cellmate. It does not take Valentin long to become hooked on Molina’s recounting of the movie and “see” it himself.
Jennifer Lopez, left, and Tonatiuh in a scene from “Kiss of The Spider Woman.”
With long blond hair parted down the middle for the role of Ingrid, Lopez resembles Madonna. This seems fitting since both stars have sought world domination as triple threats – singing, acting, dancing – in their careers. But the similarities only go so far. Whereas Madonna has not inflicted her acting on the public in years, Lopez still insists on singing. Her voice sounds fine on heavily produced dance tracks, but there is no obscuring its thinness here.
It does not help that the songs are mere sketches designed to be filled in by Broadway-baby belting. Only Tonatiuh, his voice rich and resonant, fully inflates them, but his singing parts are limited.
Still, Lopez is an excellent actor and dancer. There are moments – especially as the Spider Woman, who seems both drunk on her own power and regretful it hurts others – that Lopez’s acting momentarily elevates a song. She also moves gracefully through several demanding set pieces, including a clever, Bob Fosse-inspired “Chicago” homage.
Since she first broke through (and lip-synced, by the way) in 1997’s “Selena,” there has been no denying Lopez is a movie star. She’s just not the right star for this movie.
Carla Meyer is a freelance writer.
This article originally published at ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ review: A stunning musical – until Jennifer Lopez starts singing.
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