Bill Condon's ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman' Earns Mixed Reviews [Sundance]

As Sundance rolls along with its final day of premieres, Bill Condon’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” starring Jennifer Lopez, screened at the Eccles theater last night.

Based on Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel of the same title, ‘Kiss’ was first released as a film in 1985. Directed by Hector Babenco, it garnered critical acclaim and received four Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, the latter category won by the film’s lead, the late great William Hurt.

No such luck, or acclaim, for Condon’s film. The reviews are very mixed. The only shiningly positive reaction comes from Variety. Meanwhile, IndieWire, Screen, NY Post, and THR are not that impressed.

Here’s the synopsis of Condon’s musical version:

Set in an Argentinian prison in 1981, Lopez will play the titular role, a woman named Aurora created by Luis Molina, a gay hairdresser serving an eight-year sentence for allegedly corrupting a minor. To escape the horrors of his imprisonment, Molina imagines movies starring Aurora as a classic silver screen diva, including a role of the spider woman, who kills her prey with a kiss. Molina’s life is upended when a Marxist, Valentin Arregui Paz, is brought into his cell, and the two form an unlikely bond.

It was just last year that the New York Times’ Kyle Buchanan mentioned that there was talk of pulling an “October surprise” and releasing “Kiss of the Spider Woman” late in the year for Oscar contention. Probably a good idea they didn’t do that.

Condon, an Oscar winner, was once a much praised director. His first three films included “Gods and Monsters,” “Kinsey,” and “Dreamgirls,” and then Hollywood came calling — his collapse started when he decided to helm the last two ‘Twilight’ movies.

Condon has also become one of the preeminent directors to hire if you want to make a movie musical; he wrote the screenplay for 2002’s “Chicago,” directed 2006’s “Dreamgirls,” directed 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast,” and co-wrote 2017’s “The Greatest Showman.”

Meanwhile, Lopez is coming off her Netflix action hits “Atlas,” and “The Mother.” The one question that should be asked is … has Lopez ever been in a good movie? Why, yes, she has, but you’d have to go way back, almost 27 years to this day, to watch her sultry turn in Steven Soderbergh’s “Out of Sight.”