Diego Luna

Two men, one gay and obsessed with an old Hollywood actress and the other a revolutionary, are locked in the same cell in an Argentinian prison during the country’s military dictatorship. If you knew nothing of the source material, you would never know that this story of unlikely friendships, love, and understanding is a musical until 20 minutes in. Kiss of the Spider Woman has a big legacy. The smartest choices director Bill Condon made, besides casting relative newcomer Tonatiuh as Molina, were the updates he made to the script. He cuts most of the songs set in the prison so the musical elements are all in the fantasy sequences. This grounds the prison scenes and takes away the gloss a Kander and Ebb musical can bring. In the original film and stage musical, Molina’s journey focused mainly on his sexuality. This time, it’s the character’s gender identity that gets fully fleshed out. Now is the perfect time to tell this story, not only because queer terminology has pierced mainstream media and culture, but because we can fully embrace and celebrate these characters because we know others like them, not just because we were fascinated by them like in past adaptions.