‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ musical with Jennifer Lopez dazzles at Sundance

PARK CITY, Utah — A lavish, MGM-style musical is not typical Sundance Film Festival fare. But Sunday night Bill Condon brought such a creation — well, part of one — to Park City, Utah, with his adaptation of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” starring Jennifer Lopez.

Audiences broke out in spontaneous applause during the screening for Lopez’s song and dance numbers. She plays an old Hollywood screen siren in a movie-within-the movie. The packed Eccles Theater also gave Lopez, wearing a glittery spiderweb themed frock, a standing ovation after the show.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life,” Lopez said.

The story, which revolves around the conversations between two cellmates in an Argentine prison, was first a novel by Manuel Puig in 1976 and has been adapted for stage and screen over the years. A 1985 film adaptation starred William Hurt and Raul Julia. Hurt won an Oscar for his performance. On Broadway, it won multiple Tony Awards.

Condon wrote and directed this new version, which is seeking a distributor. Diego Luna plays an imprisoned revolutionary Valentin Arregui, whose new cellmate Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) loves movies, celebrity and glamour and enthusiastically recounts the story of a favorite movie musical, called “Kiss of the Spider Woman” to Valentin, giving them and the audience a break from their bleak reality.

While the film has memorable moments of escapist spectacle, it also delves into serious topics of gender identity. Molina tells Valentin that they don’t feel like a man or a woman — which Valentin finds odd at first but grows to understand.

Before the screening, Condon said that one of the things the movie is about is “the attempt to bridge the incredible differences that separate us so often.” He quoted President Donald Trump’s recent remarks about two genders as official policy.

“That’s a sentiment I think you’ll see that the movie has a different point of view on,” said Condon.

After the film, the discussion of gender identity and tolerance continued. Tonatiuh said it was difficult growing up as a “femme queer Latin kid in a culture that doesn’t necessarily praise those things” and was told that it would be limiting in an acting career.

“When I got this material, I knew this person spiritually,” Tonatiuh said. I understood someone who felt like a loser in their own life and learns how to be the hero of their own story. I got to show the entire spectrum from feminine to masculine and everything in between.”

But most of all everyone was just excited to be in a real movie musical.

“I did write that line, ‘I pity people who hate musicals,”‘ Condon said. “All the things that movies can do can happen in a musical.”

Lopez said it was watching “West Side Story” every Thanksgiving on television that made her want to become a performer.

Condon, Lopez said through tears, “made my dreams come true.”