Everyone loves a story about stories — and Hollywood is no exception. From Neverending Story to The Princess Bride, storytelling has proven to be a compelling cinematic traditions, at least when it strikes a balance. Of course for every movie with the magic of Big Fish there’s a Prairie Home Companion — slightly too earnest, too meta, too wrapped up in itself. Thankfully, Manuel Puig’s surreal ode to the power of storytelling, Kiss of the Spider Woman, seems immune to such pitfalls. The story has received yet another powerful Hollywood adaptation that shows the versatility of this genre and the staying power of this 49-year-old story.
First published in 1976, Puig’s story of two Argentinian prison cellmates whiling away the time by recounting the plots of films to each other, has been adapted to both the screen and the stage, most famously as the Oscar-winning 1985 film starring William Hurt. The glitzy new silver screen version, directed by Bill Condon, adapts the 1993 Broadway musical adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman, and in the process, updates the somewhat surreal, esoteric story for modern audiences used to glamorous Hollywood musicals and sweeping queer romances, making for maximum crowdpleasing efficiency. As cynical as that sounds, you can’t help but get lost in it. It works.
