I’m admittedly an easy target for the movie musical. Since I was very young, I’ve been drawn to the spectacle of the classic musical. And the element of escapism tied into that is one of the most important reasons why the musical has stuck with me and remained important throughout my life. But it’s recently become increasingly rare that you find a film that truly understands what the movie musical is supposed to be. It’s a very different beast from the stage musical and so often, what works on a stage does not work in a film. But there are some filmmakers who just get it. Bill Condon just gets it.

I had no reason to think I wouldn’t love Kiss of the Spider Woman, Condon’s new adaptation of the John Kander and Fred Ebb musical based on Héctor Babenco’s 1985 Oscar winning film, itself an adaptation of the Manuel Puig 1976 novel. But I wasn’t familiar with this particular show, I didn’t know any of the music or what the story was. Condon premiered the film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival where it enjoyed some good reviews, and I made an effort to not learn much about it, because I always like to be surprised when I finally sit down in a movie theater. And it wasn’t long into Kiss of the Spider Woman before I realized, this is easily going to become one of my favorite films of the year. But many viewers still have an aversion I don’t understand to the musical. But the story of this film itself provides plenty of reasons why those viewers should think again.

The very soft-spoken and stoic Valentín (Diego Luna) is a political activist imprisoned during the 1983 military dictatorship in Argentina. He is paired together with cellmate Molina (Tonatiuh), a gay window dresser who is there due to ‘public indecency’ charges. The two form an unlikely friendship as Molina recounts the story of his favorite Hollywood musical movie, Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring his favorite Latin American diva Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez). 

As a tribute to the magic of movies, Kiss of the Spider Woman is incredibly poignant and moving. I’m someone who has long relied on cinema to take me out of myself. For when I’m feeling anxious, depressed, or overwhelmed, it has always helped me to go sit down in a movie theater and forget about the world outside of that room for awhile. When a movie can take you to another world and let you live a different life for two hours, it’s proof how magical the medium of film is on a grand scale. And I saw so much of myself in the characters in this film, and this quickly became a very personal film for me. The parallels to where we are right now are strong but don’t slap you across the face with their messaging. In a time when it feels like the horrors of unchecked political power are more prevalent than they’ve been in ages, the power of escapism is stronger than ever. And Kiss of the Spider Woman is a powerful love letter to not only the movie musical, and/or old Hollywood, but the necessity of escapism in general.

Diego Luna couldn’t be better here, giving a kind of performance I’ve never seen from him. I had no idea he could sing or dance, but he is here, and he’s pulling it off very well. And if he wasn’t connecting emotionally in this role, the central relationship of this story would not have the urgency and immediacy it needs to succeed. We learn about Valentín’s backstory little by little, and Luna keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat, as each detail we learn about this character adds to the performance’s complexity.

And it feels like this is a role Jennifer Lopez was born to play. Ingrid Luna is the larger than life diva who’s more of an idea than a fully developed person, but Lopez leans into the mysticism of that kind of celebrity. We can never really know them, but what we imagine them to be is grander than anything they could be in reality. And this story is not interested in who Ingrid Luna really is, it’s interested in the way Molina remembers her. And Lopez is giving you full-on 1940s MGM Fred and Ginger musical magnificence. And it’s a different type of performance than we’re used to seeing from her, but every bit of her performance here couldn’t possibly be better. Lopez can be hit or miss for me, but in the right role, she’s irreplaceable. And it’s hard to imagine any other actress in the role of Ingrid Luna.

However, if this film belongs to any one performer, it’s newcomer Tonatiuh. I have never heard of him before, or seen him in anything, but this is the kind of once-in-a-generation performance that feels like the birth of a true movie star, and one that will stick with you long after the house lights go up. The kind of emotional complexity Tonatiuh is bringing to this character makes his every moment onscreen matter. Every facial expression, every line reading, everything seems calculated and extremely specific. We see Molina playing the version of a Spider Woman character, playing that character as the version he’s always wanted to see. And as a classic song and dance man, Tonatiuh’s performance is just as exciting.

There’s one particularly striking and memorable sequence where Molina is at his lowest, and turns to his movie posters and begs to be taken away from all of the pain. This launches us into a dazzling and devastating musical number between Tonatiuh and Lopez, a sequence that on its own, is worth the cost of admission. I’m going to be thinking about this performance for a long time, and it’s one that’s incredibly deserving of awards recognition.

Writer/director Bill Condon once again proves himself to be a master of the movie musical. He’s an Oscar winner for the 1998 film Gods and Monsters, but I remember him most for writing Rob Marshall’s best picture winning Chicago adaptation, and for writing and directing the lauded 2006 Dreamgirls film. Condon approaches Spider Woman in ways that feel a lot like Chicago, also a Kander and Ebb musical. Most of the musical numbers play out in the context of the Spider Woman movie, but they’re all in the context of how Molina remembers them. We get the impression Kiss of the Spider Woman is old Hollywood fluffy nonsense that must have hit this character at the right time in his life. And this movie that may not be important in a historical context, became everything to him. And there’s something so relatable in that, as someone whose life has been changed time and time again by the magic of movies. 

It would also be very easy to get the tone of this wrong, but Condon avoids those traps at every turn. The dichotomy between the bleak and brutal world of the prison, to the technicolor splendor and idealism of the world presented in the movie in Molina’s head, is very striking. And it’s beautiful how as the story progresses, we begin to discover more similarities between the movie and the reality. Cinematographer Tobias A. Schliessler, who has worked with Condon previously, shot this and the back and forth between these two very different stories is handled beautifully. Also, Colleen Atwood’s costume design is predictably stunning. And production designer Scott Chambliss does an incredible job at nailing the two worlds of this movie. The world of the prison is dark, grungy and horrifying, and the world of Spider Woman is lush, vivid and stunningly beautiful. To get both of those right feels like quite the feat.

Like I said before, I’m not familiar with the stage musical this is based on, so I can’t really speak to what it gets right or wrong as an adaptation, but on its own as a film, Kiss of the Spider Woman is bleak and beautiful, haunting and dazzling. It’s a love letter to the Hollywood musical of yesteryear but also an urgent warning about where we could be headed as a country if we keep letting the bad guys win. It’s an emotionally impactful story about queer identity, and Latin identity, but about how much people from very different walks of life have to learn from each other. I would see this in a theater, on the biggest screen you can find with the best sound. This film deserves the cinematic experience in ways few films I’ve seen this year have. See it for the spectacle and splendor of the music, but also for the emotionally profound messaging you’ll walk away with. And also, see it for Tonatiuh. You’ll be hearing that name a lot moving forward.