Tags: blog, film, drama, musical, recommended, 2025
Author: KickingK
Date: Saturday December 13th, 2025
I have a web of friends everywhere
Technically, almost the entirety of this film takes place in a prison cell with just two inmates, Left wing activist Valentín Arregui (Cassian Andor, sorry, Diego Luna) and Luis Molina (Tonatiuh). One a political prisoner, the other inside for 'gross indecency', or 'being gay' in other words.
To while away the time and to take their mind off their impending torture, Molina describes his favourite movie, Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring his idol, Ingrid Luna. We then see his vivid description come to life and we get to see the film he's obsessed with as he sees it.
Which is where Jennifer Lopez comes in, playing Ingrid, her character Aurora and the villain of the movie-within-a-movie, the titular Spider Woman.
Lopez puts in a Star (capital S, should probably be a ! in there as well really) performance for the ages. She's absolutely phenomenal, all power and strength and glamour. She has the easy grace of someone whose greatest skill is making it all look so easy, big wide grins and sly winks, bang on the beat, doing something so athletic and intricate it must have taken a dozen takes.
The costumes and choreography work overtime to accentuate how much of a star she is and how much Molina adores her. In every scene she's in there's always a huge amount of action happening in the background and yet, anytime I tried to focus on any of it, I found my eyes sliding inexorably back to her, like a marble rolling towards the spout of a funnel. She's the almost literal gravitational centre point of the movie and everyone and everything in it, including the viewer, are pulled in towards her.
The movie she's in isn't even that great, Molina even admits that from the start, it's the performance of a lifetime that's the point. And it's through that performance that we get to see the two men's friendship grow.
Gradually, through the shared fantasy the two grow closer together, seeing the world through each other's eyes. Arregui begins to understand that class struggle and liberation is only worth it if you embrace the joy and freedom that it offers you, and bring everyone along for the ride. Molina starts to realise that he can find the dignity he craves in solidarity with a cause.
And all of this through the medium of Jenny-from-the-block high kicking her way through latin show tunes.
The meta-narrative of the film-within-a-film is curiously obvious. I was always aware, during each and every scene, of what the film was trying to do and say. It had a slightly distancing effect, I could never truly lose myself in a scene, always aware that I was watching a movie.
But that didn't stop that message from working. There was a cumulative effect to each scene, each one piling on top of the other to the point where I was completely invested in what was happening and why.
Watching this so soon after One Battle After Another made it feel like a lovely little companion piece to that film. Explicitly showing the joy, hope and expression behind community struggles against fascism.
And also J-Lo. Just Wow!
Poster Credit Where to Watch
Tags: blog, film, drama, musical, 2024
Author: KickingK
Date: Tuesday May 28th, 2024
Paul Mescal is wonderful but he’s not an American.
A modern interpretation of the opera by Georges Bizet, this knows what it’s not interested in. It’s not interested in the story, it’s barely interested in the characters. It is however, very interested in the music and the dance. It focuses on tone and feeling, instead of nuts’n’bolts story telling.
The choreography is superb, always down to earth, never showy. It feels like the characters are expressing themselves through the dance, rather than the script. I felt emotionally connected to the dance in a way that I don’t when watching most Hollywood dance routines.
It helps that Nicholas Britell is on his best form, producing a score that is simply gorgeous.
Unfortunately, the film isn’t quite daring enough to overcome the slightness of the story. When the music fades and the dancing stops, the story loses momentum and the fire in the heart cools.
But when they are dancing, it burns very bright indeed.