Jennifer Lopez stalks into theKiss of the Spider Womanconference in towering stilettos, wearing a fitted jacket with a cinched waist and shoulder pads paired with floral satin shorts embellished with black lace. She looks the part of a movie star: glamorous, beautiful and daring. The Latina beauty stars in an old fashioned musical that justifies her title as a triple threat: actor, singer, dancer – and boy does she deliver.
The 56 year old portrays multiple roles in Bill Condon’s throwback to the grand musicals of yesteryear with Bob Fosse-like dance and singing numbers that make you want to stand up and cheer. Based on a 1979 novel by Manuel Puig,The Kiss of the Spider Womanhas had several iterations, usually to critical acclaim. William Hurt’s portrayal of Molina,the flamboyant, gay window dresser who shares a prison cell with a political revolutionary, Valentin, in Manuel Puig’s novel adapted for the screen in 1986, won him an Oscar.
The drama was made into a Broadway musical which took the Tony in 1993. Directed by Bill Condon, who has an academy award for Best Screenplay for another broadway musical turned into a movie,Chicago,Kiss Of the Spider Woman, debuts in South Africa at the start of next year with Oscar whispers. Set in Argentina’s dark period of political oppression when thousands were kidnapped from the streets, tortured and many disappeared forever,Kiss of the Spider Womanis a tale within a tale.
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The central story is of Molina played by Tonatiuh (full name, Tonatiuh Elizarraraz), who’s placed in a prison cell to access secrets of Valentin, played by Diego Luna, who won’t break under brutal pressure to reveal the names of resistance leaders. Initially rejected and denigrated by Valentin, they finally bond when Molina wields a tale that allows the two men to mentally escape from their dank cell of mind games and abuse. In the telling of the tale the fantasy elements are acted in bright, energetic splashes with a chorus of dancers and singers.
Tonatiuh’s second role in the film is playing a straight man in love with his star. The revolutionary leader, Valentin, stars in the fantasy as the Diva’s love interest. He also has several singing and dance numbers.
The movie is full of unexpected love and sacrifice experienced by all the characters. The bright splendor of the fantasy numbers are made more spectacular in stark contrast to the dark emotional arcs of the cell in which the two prisoners find themselves. “It was a sprint,” says co-executive producer, Lopez, lamenting the tight shooting schedule.
“We were in run-and-gun mode. I wish we’d had a year and a half of rehearsals like you get in some musicals. Often I had to shoot the entire song and dance in one take, but ever since I was a kid I’ve always dreamed of performing a part like this.” Lopez, who made headlines over the past few years because of her reunion with Ben Affleck, marriage and subsequent divorce, has always been a fan favourite and a thorn in the side of critics who give her – undeservingly – short shrift in the talent department.
While others are glorified, Los Angeles critics seem to compete with each other in tart and discounting commentary on her performances. The bias will, no doubt, ice this performance too. But, if they put their assumptions aside, naysayers will have to credit Lopez for her distinct delivery as the diva, Ingrid Luna playing Aurora in the in-universe story, the star of Molina’s tale and the titular Spider Woman.
“Jennifer in that gold dress [a heavily beaded, 50-pound costume that was incredibly weighty and difficult to move in]is one of my favourite moments of the film,” says the director, Condon. “We shot it in the Fred Astaire style – a single take. I broke the news to her that we were going to shoot what would’ve taken the rest of the day in just over a minute.
That required Jennifer to perform a complicated routine, in a long gown with six men, spinning, landing on her mark, being carried aloft. The set up took a long time and included a crane, but when I called ‘action’ she delivered every aspect brilliantly. It was thrilling to watch.” Lopez comments, “Bill said, ‘You’re spinning out of it.
Three turns. Then hit your mark’.” Her almond eyes widen. The mother of Max and Emme with singer Marc Anthony – one of her four husbands – explains that since Condon refused to do pickup takes in what’s called, ‘coverage’ (to get the close-up and mid-shots), she had to understand the movement of the crane and other cameras so she could move her body appropriately and project the right expression at the right time.
“The dress weighed 50 pounds. It had a fringe that would get caught on stuff. It looked great, but then they decided to make the waist even tighter – I still had to breathe, sing, move,” she says.
“I glibly tease that I cast Jennifer because there aren’t many divas left these days, and she plays a diva,” Condon explains. “But she understood that Aurora is Molina’s best version of what he could have in his life. She’s a character who’s never had love and finds love in the course of this movie.
She’s playing a character in the style of the ‘40s, but also playing the part of a real actress – an entirely different character, and the dark version of that. So, seriously, I cast her not because she’s a diva, but because she’s a really great actress.” Lopez, who’s sold 80 million records internationally and whose films have grossed $3.1 billion worldwide, extolls the current relevance of the film. “It’s the story of two people who’d never, under normal circumstances, find themselves in the same circles, they’re so opposite, but they are thrown together, find humanity and fall in love.
In my own family I know how important it is to have queer representation in movies. The same way I needed to see Puerto Rican, Rita Moreno inWest Side Story. That mattered to me.
It changed the course of my life. It made me realise I could do things that nobody in my family had ever thought of doing. That’s important,” she says.
“Bill was adamant that everybody was Latino. Other iterations ofKiss of the Spider Womandidn’t insist on a Latin cast, despite the fact that the story is set in Argentina. But despite the setting, it feels universal. Everybody can relate to it.”
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