The path from page to stage to screen rarely travels in a straight line, and Kiss of the Spider Woman has traced one of the most fascinating arcs in modern musical theater history. Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel became a 1985 Oscar-winning drama, then a Tony-winning Broadway musical in 1993 thanks to Terrence McNally, John Kander, and Fred Ebb.

Now, Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast director Bill Condon returns to the movie musical with a dazzling Technicolor-hued adaptation that dares to bridge fantasy and oppression—bringing Jennifer Lopez into a role originated by the incomparable Chita Rivera—a lineage that includes Vanessa Williams, with whispers of Ariana DeBose waiting in the wings for a future revival.

Condon has always been drawn to illusion’s fragile exploration of the truth, and Kiss of the Spider Woman proves a fitting canvas for that obsession. Set in 1983 Argentina during the final days of military dictatorship, the film follows Valentín (Diego Luna, Elysium), a Marxist revolutionary jailed and tortured for his politics, and Molina (Tonatiuh, Carry On), a gay window dresser convicted of “public indecency.”

To survive, Molina retreats into Technicolor fantasies of an old Hollywood melodrama starring his idol, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez, Atlas), a diva trapped between desire and death. As he recounts her tragic film, Kiss of the Spider Woman, the gray prison walls dissolve into gleaming soundstages, where his imagination transforms deprivation into a defiant escape.

Lopez, at long last, gets the full-throated musical vehicle her triple-threat reputation has always deserved. Lopez is mesmerizing—radiant yet human, channeling Rivera’s command and Rita Hayworth’s cinematic heat. Her “Where You Are” number arrives midway through and immediately becomes one of the year’s most thrilling movie-musical moments—pure showstopper territory. Clad in Colleen Atwood‘s pristine white suit and fedora, Lopez leads the male ensemble with precision and playfulness, her voice both seductive and mournful. Her physicality has rarely looked sharper; every turn, step, and gesture feels sculpted by purpose. It’s stunning that she hasn’t taken even a limited Broadway run. She’s got the chops, and this performance makes for a persuasive audition tape.

Across the cell, Tonatiuh delivers a breakout performance of real depth and vulnerability. He resists the easy camp trap, imbuing Molina with humor, dignity, and a tender ache for connection. Like William Hurt’s Oscar-winning turn in the 1985 adaptation, his work carries a humanity that trembles but doesn’t break.

Luna impresses once the film moves past some shaky early vocals—thankfully, Condon’s script doesn’t ask him to sing much after that. His considerable dramatic talents anchor the film’s harsher realities. The chemistry between the two men—first wary, then intimate—carries the film through its more theatrical passages.

Condon’s approach is audacious: he treats these two worlds as separate films stitched together by emotion. Prison scenes are shot in claustrophobic, handheld realism by longtime collaborator Tobias Schliessler, while Molina’s reveries explode in shimmering widescreen homage to classic MGM musicals. Schliessler reunites with Condon after Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast, their visual shorthand producing another striking achievement. That contrast mirrors the story’s themes of confinement and liberation, with imagination serving not as denial but as rebellion. Scott Chambliss‘s production design reinforces this duality: the prison is stripped of comfort, all peeling paint and stale air, while fantasy sequences gleam with reflective surfaces and seductive colors that seem to dance with Lopez.

Atwood’s costumes deserve their own billing. Her fabrics shimmer like Old Hollywood armor, coded in color and silhouette to trace Molina’s emotional arc. Sam Davis‘s orchestral score interlaces seamlessly with Kander & Ebb’s timeless songs—”Never You” and “I Will Dance Alone” linger longest—giving the musical an aching soul. Condon’s staging nods to Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, cutting most songs set in the prison and confining musical numbers to Molina’s fantasies. It’s a bold move that sometimes falters; the absence of music in the real world drains emotional momentum from Valentín and Molina’s shared scenes.

The stage version’s interwoven structure allowed emotion to bloom where the film keeps its grip tight. This is fundamentally a musical that makes more intuitive sense onstage, where audiences accept the collision of brutal realism and MGM glamour without demanding literal logic.

The film’s emotional weight lands hardest in its quieter moments—those exploring the humanity between two people society seeks to erase. Molina’s devotion to Ingrid’s cinematic world becomes protest; in dreaming, he resists. For a story about people imprisoned for defying authoritarian power, the parallels to our current moment land with uncomfortable resonance. Watching Kiss of the Spider Woman in 2025—as governments worldwide tighten control over marginalized communities and artistic expression faces renewed censorship—the film’s message feels bracingly relevant. Art becomes survival. Beauty becomes defiance. The personal becomes profoundly political.

In dedicating the film to Fred Ebb, Terrence McNally, and Chita Rivera, Condon honors a history of artists who understood that musicals have always been refuge for the marginalized—places where illusion and truth intertwine. Rivera’s original stage role looms large here, and Lopez embraces it with reverence, creating a bridge from Broadway legend to modern icon.

By its haunting finale, Kiss of the Spider Woman reaffirms the resilience of imagination. It may not glide as seamlessly onto the screen as Kander & Ebb’s Chicago, but its ambition and sincerity elevate it above most modern musicals. For Lopez, it’s a career-best turn; for Tonatiuh, a star-making debut; and for audiences willing to surrender to its rhythm between despair and delirium, it’s a lush, aching reminder that the human spirit will always find its stage. Condon weaves fantasy and fear into a shimmering, imperfect web—and in its tangled beauty, we see ourselves.