In their dark, damp prison quarters, Malina (Tonatiuh) and Valentin (Diego Luna) only have each other for company. Valentin is a radical imprisoned for his revolutionary views; Malina is a window-dresser condemned for homosexual activities. Valetin wants nothing to do with Malina, focusing on his work as his cellmate flutters around their modest room trying to make the best out of a bad situation. To Valentin, Malina is a man who lacks substance and morals, living a life without dignity. Their room is decorated with Malina’s posters and trinkets procured by the guards, with his queerness implied to be the payment. “There are privileges in degradation,” he tells Valetin, who responds with disgust. Valentin remarks that Malina shouldn’t “make himself trivial.” Malina flaunts his queerness and Valentin displays no sexuality, but his straightness is implied––at least at first. As the two men slowly warm up to each other, Malina makes a suggestion: he will describe his favorite film, Kiss of the Spider Woman, to Valentin in order to pass the time in their miserable situation. And so begins their unlikely love story.
Bill Condon’s Kiss of the Spider Woman is the story of these two men and the bond that grows between them in the worst possible circumstances. Based on the 1976 novel of the same name by Manuel Puig and the musical adaptation of the story from the early ’90s, Kiss of the Spider Woman is part prison drama and love story, with another love story embedded therein. The film-within-the-film, Kiss of the Spider Woman, is a Technicolor musical classic starring the famous Latina actress Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez) as both the film’s heroine Aurora and deadly Spider Woman that haunts her story. Aurora is a popular, glamorous magazine editor with a closeted gay best friend (Tonatiuh) and countless suitors. Despite her beauty and desirability, Aurora has never truly fallen in love, keeping every man at arm’s length––until she meets Armando (Diego Luna), a dashing photographer and perfect gentleman. Soon she finds herself back in the village she grew up in as Armando contemplates leaving her old life behind for true love and marriage.
Back in the real world, Malina has been secretly tasked with probing Valentin to get information for The Warden (Bruno Bichir) but keeps coming up short. In the midst of it all Malina slowly realizes that he’s falling in love, but back home his mother is waiting for him and this marks his only chance of getting parole. As his situation becomes more complicated and he falls deeper for Valetin, Ingrid Luna begins to leave the confines of the film’s fantasy world and enter his, giving voice to Malina’s wants and desires.
Choreographed by Tony Award winner Sergio Trujillo, Lopez is in top form as Aurora, Ingrid, and eventually the Spider Woman herself. It’s mesmerizing to watch her dance, commanding the screen, fully in her element. Lopez has always been underrated as an actress, but Condon unleashes her fully in the film––she graces the screen like a Golden Hollywood starlet. Lopez even has nice chemistry with Luna in the film-within-the-film, his soft masculinity perfectly complimenting her glamorous Aurora. With Malina and his film counterpart Kendell there’s a gentle antagonism, as if she’s pushing him to reveal himself fully to her. In their confined room, the men speak plainly––Valetin wants to be with Aurora, but Malina wants to be her. Aurora is everything Malina wishes he was; the Spider Woman is everything he’s afraid of.
Despite the jumps from reality to fantasy and back again, Kiss of the Spider Woman has one clear, loud emotional heartbeat. Every musical and dance number is well-performed and bursting with thematic meaning; the music is fun, the jokes land, and the overlapping characters are compelling to watch in both the real and fantasy world. Tonatiuh and Luna make a playful, beautiful couple, with a tenderness rarely seen between two Latino men onscreen, especially in a film as big as this one. There’s a brightness to Condon’s filmmaking that reminds us why we love musicals in the first place. Here’s hoping Kiss of the Spider Woman finds an audience to become the crowd-pleasing delight it’s so clearly poised to be.
Kiss of the Spider Woman premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.