A kiss and a miss for this ‘Spider Woman’
By Alfred P. Doblin
There was no grand plan behind seeing Kiss of the Spider Woman the same weekend as the “No Kings” rallies. America is not the 1983 Argentina of the latest adaption of Manuel Puig’s novel. Yet, the thought of the rallies, unprecedented challenges to our democracy, and the images of immigrants being rounded up, loaded on planes, and sent to a notorious Venezuelan prison or places to be determined, swirled in my head much like the Hollywood musical fantasies do in the mind of the prisoner Molina in Kiss of the Spider Woman.
While there may be a new moral to Puig’s story waiting to be drawn out, the waiting will have to continue. The film version of the hit Kander and Ebb stage musical is many things – some quite beautiful and moving – but it is surprisingly less powerful than it should be. Given the planning for any big film, it is unlikely the creative people involved in the project were anticipating where the world would be in 2025. Not everyone is as prescient as Fred Ebb who wrote: “The planet spins and the world goes round and round.”
When I began writing these blogs, I said there would be showtunes, so like Bette Davis said in All About Eve and Lauren Bacall tried to sing in Applause, “fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night.”
I wanted so much to love this film. Jennifer Lopez remains an underappreciated serious talent despite all her commercial success. Maybe she will get Oscar this time. Maybe this time she’ll be lucky.
Yet, something does not work in the film. The construct of this Kiss of the Spider Woman is a film within a film, which is sort of like the stage version, but it was not so deliberately bifurcated. Director and screenwriter Bill Condon has put all the songs into Hollywood movie musical sequences, that follow the plot of the “film within the film,” The Kiss of the Spider Woman, told by Molina, an imprisoned gay window dresser, to his cellmate, Valentin, a political prisoner. Both Molina and Valentin will “step into” this movie of Molina’s imagination.
The star of this film is a fictional Latina star of yore: Ingrid Luna who plays Aurora, who runs a fashion magazine.
Aurora has a gay assistant who quickly becomes Molina, because the actor in the “real” film, who was gay, tried to “butch it up” too much. There is a quick dig at Danny Kaye. If you don’t know, there was a great stage musical, Lady in the Dark. The Kurt Weill-Ira Gershwin show set all its musical numbers into three dream sequences. The main character, Liza Elliott, is the editor of a fashion magazine named Allure, and in the original stage version, she had a very gay fashion photographer played by none other than Danny Kaye. The role made him a star.
That piece of trivia is perhaps what got in my way in this film version. That and the constant references to great movie musicals. All the musical scenes are riffs on something else – which could be fantastic – but there is a fine line between an homage and being derivative. Rather than be taken into a new vision that clearly was influenced by the great directors and choreographers of the past, I was constantly reminded that Gene Kelly did this better, and that Judy Garland is, well, Judy Garland and why would you want someone as talented as Jennifer Lopez setting herself up to be compared with Judy Garland? Or Rita Hayworth? Or anyone else?
The movie musical is a dicey thing. Bob Fosse found that sweet spot in Cabaret. He took the stage musical, eliminated many songs including “So What,” my favorite because it sums up the entire Weimar culture, and aside from a Nazi youth singing in the countryside, put all the songs inside the cabaret.
Valentin says something to the effect, “No one sings in real life,” to which Molina replies, “Well, maybe they should.” The difference between Cabaret and Kiss of the Spider Woman is that a good part of the former show is set inside a cabaret; the songs add context to the characters and the plot, so eliminating the songs of mainly secondary characters, did not affect the story telling.
But to go out on a limb here, removing all the songs from the characters inside the prison in Kiss of the Spider Woman is a little like Molina’s criticism of the obviously gay assistant in the fictional film who butches it up. You can either accept the construct of a musical – that everyone is singing everywhere – or you create a straight (no pun intended, well-maybe just a little) play.
The two stories playing out in Kiss of the Spider Woman, one in the prison and one in the movie musical, never quite connect dramatically. In fact, the prison scenes are the more powerful and beautiful. By putting all the music in one basket, and then creating a single fantasy musical where everything Technicolor happens, Condon keeps the stories separate rather than woven together.
Condon found magic in Chicago, but in Kiss of the Spider Woman it felt like Chromolume #7 (See Sunday in the Park with George).
Diego Luna is perfect as Valentin. Tonatiuh is nothing short of a revelation on screen as Molina. And Jennifer Lopez is technically brilliant in everything she does. But I still found myself disengaged. The story is about accepting who you are, having the courage to die for who you are and what you believe to be true, and most important, to acknowledge the importance of love in all of this.
Love is the Technicolor.
If you believe in democracy, we are living in dangerous times. Across the globe, people I don’t quite recognize are singing “Tomorrow belongs to me.” This is a moment when the underlying message of all the variations of Manuel Puig’s novel needs to be proclaimed. Something was missing in this film version. The final, haunting shot seemed part of another film, one that would have had more edge.
“And the candles in our hand will illuminate this land, if not tomorrow, then the day after that.” Valentin sings that in the stirring, political song, “The Day After That.” It was a big moment in the original stage version. It was cut from the film.
Until next time, Alfred with P