J.Lo Mesmerizes, Tonatiuh Transforms in Kiss of the Spider Woman

By DaMarko Webster

Jennifer Lopez slinks back onto the big screen with venom and glamor in Kiss of the Spider Woman, director Bill Condon’s lush new adaptation of the Tony-winning musical. And while Lopez headlines with unmistakable star power, the real surprise lies in the breakout performance of Tonatiuh, whose portrayal of Luis — a queer hairdresser imprisoned during Argentina’s Dirty War — becomes the aching heart of the film.

In this dreamlike musical fantasia, Luis uses the films of fictional silver-screen siren Ingrid Luna (played by Lopez) to mentally escape the trauma of his incarceration. Ingrid’s most famous role? A femme fatale spider woman who literally kisses her lovers to death. It’s an intoxicating metaphor, spun like silk across thirteen original musical numbers sung by Lopez, Tonatiuh, and Diego Luna, who plays Valentin, the imprisoned Marxist revolutionary who shares Luis’s cell. What starts as a tension-filled cohabitation becomes an unexpected connection, stitched together by shared disillusionment and an unlikely love for cinema.

In the trailer, Lopez croons the standout number “Where You Are,” cloaked in old Hollywood mystique. It’s a reminder that Condon (Dreamgirls) understands how to marry melodrama with musicality, and here, he does both with velvet-gloved control. The production, backed by Artists Equity and a producing team including Barry Josephson, Tom Kirdahy, and Greg Yolen, leans into the surreal and theatrical without losing sight of the political unrest that drives its emotional stakes.

Early reactions out of Sundance were electric. Variety’s Peter Debruge praised Lopez’s “smoldering” performance, predicting that her presence alone could pull non-musical fans into theaters. But even his review concedes that it’s Tonatiuh who owns the film — delivering a performance that evolves from flighty to ferocious with every scene.

Kiss of the Spider Woman opens theatrically on October 10 via Lionsgate, and if the first footage is any indication, it could become one of the year’s most intoxicating cinematic experiences — a glittering ode to survival, desire, and the movies that help us make sense of both.