Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025)

 

I will tell you up front, especially if you are new to this site, I love musicals. The form is not as popular as it once was, but the ones that manage to make it to the screen are usually going to get some attention from me, even if I have reservations about the subject or director. Hell, if Ari Aster or Robert Eggers did a musical, I'd bother to see it. Fortunately, I don't have those reservations about this particular film. I generally trust Bill Condon as a director and, although I never read the original novel, I am a big fan of the 1985 film that was based on it. William Hurt won the Academy Award for his performance as Luis Molina, and the film played the story straight as a political drama, with tragic outcomes. 

When the story was converted to a Broadway Musical, I was frankly confused. I could not quite imagine how this bleak story of two prisoners in a South American hellhole, would work as fodder for tourists visiting New York City. Even with the fantasy sequences extended, it seemed like a longshot at best. I never saw the musical version, which was quite successful, until now. It works really well as a film, and I would be interested in seeing a stage production so I could compare the way they transition between the two worlds presented in the story. 

There will be some comparisons here to the 1985 film, since that is my original experience. I actually purchased a Laser Disc copy in the last year because I did not own it in any other form, and the cover art is really nice. I rewatched the film and confirmed my impression from 1985, this was one of the best films of the year. So now it comes time to see the musical version in a screen format, and I have to say I was nicely impressed. The tone is a little old fashioned, but that's ok, so am I. 

There are three things that are important to talk about here, the music sequences, the original story premise and the performances. The thing that I liked the most about the musical sequences is that they remind me of the dance numbers and songs from the 30s and 40s era films that inspired them. The camerawork is not ostentatious, it is just clever enough to give us some interesting views of the action taking place. For the most part, the scenes are shown in full screen shots with very limited edits. I'm not an expert, but I would be willing to believe that some of them were done in single takes from start to finish 9if not, then a nod to the editors who made it appear seamless). The settings are often elaborate in the way a musical from bygone times would be. There are extravagant costumes, interesting backgrounds, and colors that pop every time we go to the musical fantasies. Unlike some contemporary music, you could actually follow a melody in most of the songs. This was not a Sondheim tonal fest, but a throwback to films like "Cabaret" or "Chicago". I wasn't humming the tunes as I left the theater, but I could if I listened to them a little more. 

Bill Condon has stayed true to the political story, but there is one significant change. Molina, the persecuted homosexual that is cellmates with Valentin, the political prisoner, is revealed much earlier in the story as an informer for the warden. That limited my ability to build the requisite sympathy for the character for a lot longer time than in the 1985 film. The prison sequences are fairly grueling, and I was happy there there was no dance number to accompany the food poisoning diarrhea scene. The story is also set more clearly in the Argentina of the 1970s. The timing of events in Argentina are closely tied to the ending of the musical, where they were not as important in the 85 film. 

A Crappy Poster Does Not Help

There are several changes in the story of the old film that Molina is recounting from his memory. Those allow the fantasy character played by Jennifer Lopez, much more of a role than Sonia Braga got. Lopez continues to be beautiful on screen and her singing performance is very good, with eight or so songs to perform, including the climax title song. She has the most impressive of the musical elements in the film. Her two costars, get something that the two stars of the 1985 movie don't get, they have dual roles not only as the prisoners but as characters in the fantasy of the movie "Kiss of the Spider Woman" as Molina is telling it. Diego Luna has the heavier role in the musical sequences as the romantic interest of the star Ingrid Luna (Lopez). Tonatiuh, the actor playing Molina, has the stronger role in the prison scenes. Both of the men are quite good in the jail set scenes. Tonatiuh plays Molina with less obvious femininity than Hurt did, and the more subdued reading of the character might be better for the story, but it will probably not sustain the attention that Hurt's performance did. This may be a case where the authentic casting works against the need for the audience to suspend it's disbelief.

So, the movie is old fashioned, put together professionally, does right by it's socially important political story and the music scenes all work. So why is this film going nowhere fast with audiences? I guess it is just a different world. This movie could have been platform released thirty years ago, starting in prestige locations and then getting a wider release as interest grew. That is not the world we live in anymore, and the success of the movie suffers for it. If you can find it on the big screen, go for it, but my guess is that it will be PPV this week and streaming on a service next month. Too bad, because it would bring back some old fashioned glamour to a movie going experience. 

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

This is the first of the Star Wars Universe films that I did not see on opening day. It's not that I did not want to, but someone in the house had other commitments and the likelihood was that if I went without them, we would have had our own war on our hands. So in addition to avoiding spoilers for months, I had to avoid reviews, tweets, and tidbits of knowledge for an extra few days in order to make this experience more complete. I'm sure many of you have done the same kinds of things and believe me, I will stick to my no-spoiler policy for these comments, but I can say that this is probably my favorite of the Star Wars movies since the original trilogy was completed in 1983.  "Rogue One" feels like an integral part of the story, without having to rely on the characters we have from the other films. There is a small amount of bleed over, but for the most part this is a newly original part of the galactic battles taking place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Unlike last years "The Force Awakens", this film occurs prior to the original "Star Wars". It is not a repeat of the plot points from that film like Episode VII, it is however a supplement to the story that ends up deepening the events of the original trilogy and setting up a number of story threads that we have already seen completed in other films. One thing that is definitely true about this new film is that it may be the darkest of all of the movies with the possible exception of "Revenge of the Sith" which after all did include the murder of children as a plot point. At the conclusion of the film, there will be a realization about how dark this movie really is, that is only leavened by a call back piece of fan service that I think is totally justified.

The first third of the story introduces so many new characters, that it is a whirlwind to observe. Frankly, there were so many names and they were so hard to remember and distinguish from one another, that ultimately I just stopped trying.  Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is our heroine, and whoever she is encountering at any given moment was the only character that mattered.  Character development here may not be as important as in the continuing story, since this is a stand alone film, but it means that some of the events that take place in the film will not have the emotional impact that they would in the longer running series. Believe me however, there are plenty of strong emotional elements, and if a character was not fully explored for this story, it is usually so that the plot and action could be kept moving. There are some characters however that manage to make a mark without much more than a unique look or ambiguous reference to the past. I suspect a fan favorite will be K-2SO, an Imperial Droid reconditioned to work for the rebel alliance. There is a great deal of humor in the lines and situations where that character is included, and the voice work of Alan Tudyk is just right for the part.

Diego Luna as Cassian Andor is supposed to be a conflicted character, and his relationship with Jyn is an uncertain one. There are several moments of the film that are ominous because we don't really know how his character is going to play things out. Jones is tough and unpredictable, while Luna is shady and enigmatic. In fact, there are elements to their two characters that I suppose are designed to represent the edge between the good and the dark sides of "the force". About halfway through we get an answer, but it does not keep the two lead characters from having a continuing  substrata of tension and distrust.  It may also be the actor's accent that made it difficult at times for me to pick out which character who was not present in a scene was being referred to. My ear for articulate pronunciation was hampered by my unfamiliarity with the sounds of his speech patterns. Another character that I quite enjoyed was Bodhi, the pilot, played by Riz Ahmed. While the characters exist more than thirty years apart, he seems to be the foreshadowing embodiment of the kinds of doubts that produce the new hero in Episode VII, Finn.

There are a half dozen or so characters who have appeared in another Star Wars film and show up briefly in this one. It is no surprise that Darth Vader is in the movie, his character was teased in the trailer. Some of the other recurring characters have only the briefest of moments in the film and are really just there for fan service, although that was totally welcome by me. Two or three of those characters however are a major component of the plot and one of them is the saving grace of what might otherwise be a very downbeat outcome for the film. One member of our group was a little resentful of this character being in the film at all, suggesting that a shadow or silhouette might have sufficed. I would strongly disagree. I think the choice made was exactly right and provides the emotional kick that the movie needs to make it fit in with the rest of the films. It will probably be a discussion point on a great many podcasts but I will not step into spoilers here, as tempted as I am to defend this choice.

Another thing that makes this movie feel like a tangential story to the original trilogy is the effort to make practical sets and effects a part of the film making. There is plenty of CGI to go around, but many of the environments are clearly real set locations and not computer based backgrounds. There were more animatronic  puppets and costumes in the film than in any of the prequel films and even more than "The Force Awakens". Director Gareth Edwards, who's  only previous work I'd seen was "Godzilla", does a good job of making sense of the story given some of the convoluted plot elements and ambiguous characters a script cobbled together by four writers provided. In the long run, a lot of the movie works because Edwards keeps the story moving fast enough that we don't have time to ask questions about motivations and history. The main characters are introduced with some efficiency, although  I think we could do with a bit more back story on Jyn before she is unceremoniously "rescued".

Lets say that in the end there were plenty of space battles, heroic sacrifices and light saber lore to keep the audience happy. The surprises in the film are well earned and even the nods to the other stories that are included are not obnoxious, they are just enough to keep the legions of Star Wars fans engaged. "Rogue One " has at least three great emotional beats that will make your throat choke up a bit. It also has a climax that next to "The Empire Strikes Back" is emotionally satisfying without being particularly happy.  The Galaxy is a pretty big place and there is room for a multitude of stories about the ride and fall of the empire. Just as happens in movies about WWII, there are some stories that cross paths, but there are others that take place simultaneously which can be just as compelling as a single thread of history. "Rogue One" may be a stand alone story, but it is also an outstanding story that fills in Galactic Rebellion history, without detracting from the main event. As a fan, I'm happy to say "More please".