Bill Condon, Jennifer Lopez unveil musical ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ at Sundance

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — A lavish, MGM-style musical isn’t common. Sundance Film Festival Rent But Sunday night Bill Condon brought one such creation — well, part of one — to Park City, Utah, starring “Kiss of Spider-Woman.” Jennifer Lopez.

The audience erupted into spontaneous applause during the screening of Lopez’s song and dance numbers. She plays an old Hollywood siren in a movie within a movie. The packed Eccles Theater also gave Lopez a standing ovation after the show, wearing a sparkly spider web-themed frock.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life,” Lopez said.

The story, which revolves around a conversation between two cellmates in an Argentine prison, was first a novel by Manuel Puig in 1976 and has been adapted for stage and screen over the years. A 1985 film adaptation starred William Hurt and Raul Julia. Hurt won an Oscar for his performance. On Broadway, he won multiple Tony Awards.

Condon wrote and directed this new version, which is looking for a distributor. Diego Luna stars as imprisoned revolutionary Valentin Arrigo, whose new cellmate Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) loves movies, celebrity and glamor and enthusiastically tells the story of a favorite movie musical, called ” “Kiss of the Spider-Woman”, a break for Valentine and the audience from their dark reality.

While the film has memorable moments of escapist spectacle, it also touches on serious themes of gender identity. Molina tells Valentine that they don’t feel like a man or a woman—which Valentine finds strange at first but grows to understand.

Before the screening, Condon said that one of the things the film does is “try to bridge the incredible differences that so often separate us.” He referred to the recent statement of President Donald Trump. Commentary on the two sexes As official policy.

“It’s a sentiment that I think you’ll see is a different approach to film,” Condon said.

After the film, the discussion of gender identity and tolerance continued. Tonatiuh said it was “hard to grow up as a femme queer Latino kid in a culture that doesn’t necessarily appreciate those things” and was told it would be limited in her acting career.

“When I received this material, I knew this person spiritually,” Tonatiuh said. I understand someone who feels like a loser in their own life and learns how to be the hero of their own story. I had to show the whole spectrum from feminine to masculine and everything in between.

But most of all everyone was excited to be in a real movie musical.

“I wrote that line, ‘I pity people who hate music,'” Condon said. “All the things that movies can do can be done in musicals.”

Lopez said watching “West Side Story” every Thanksgiving on television made her aspire to be an actor.

Condon, Lopez cried, “made my dreams come true.”