‘Kiss Of The Spider Woman’ Review: Bill Condon’s Film Version Brilliantly Reinvents Broadway Musical And Finally Gives Jennifer Lopez The Role She Was Born To Play – Sundance Film Festival

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There can be no question the Broadway musicals of John Kander and Fred Ebb have been charmed when it comes to movie adaptations.

Bob Fosse’s 1972 film reinvention of Cabaret won eight Oscars. Director Rob Marshall and screenwriter Bill Condon‘s cinematic interpretation of Chicago in 2002 is still the last musical to win the Best Picture Oscar.

Both made the musical format work, even for those who hate movie musicals, by integrating the songs so they don’t collide with the narrative but seamlessly fit in with it. (Ironically for Kander and Ebb their 1977 original movie musical New York, New York directed by Martin Scorsese was less successful, as was its recent stage incarnation.) It’s nice to report that the stunning new film adaptation of their 1993 Tony-winning musical, Kiss Of The Spider Woman, joins Cabaret and Chicago as a master class in how to find the cinematic soul of a Broadway musical while still doing it justice on screen 30 years later — and in a very different time culturally.

Actually this journey started with the 1976 novel by Argentinian writer Manuel Puig, and then the 1985 film version that was nominated for Best Picture and won William Hurt the Best Actor Oscar.