Kiss of the Spider Woman Parent Guide
This Broadway adaptation works surprisingly well, with a movie-within-a-movie telling parallel stories that enhance each other.
Parent Movie Review
It’s 1983 and a military dictatorship has ruled Argentina for nine years. The junta’s “dirty war” has killed or “disappeared” over 22,000 people and kidnapped hundreds of children who were given to military officers to raise. Thousands more have been incarcerated in brutal prisons. One of those men is Valentín Arregui (Diego Luna).
Born in poverty, Arregui joins Argentina’s leftist opposition when his 14-year-old sister is killed before his eyes – shot by police at a peaceful protest. His revolutionary activities have landed him in prison where months are spent reading Marxist-Leninist tomes and refusing to divulge information during brutal interrogations. Then he gets a new cellmate.
Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) is not a political prisoner. He’s openly gay (and quietly transgender) and is serving eight years for homosexuality. Molina’s coping method is to lose himself in the movies he loves. Eventually he persuades his exasperated cellmate that listening to his retelling of a film will help them escape their cruel reality.
Molina’s favorite film is Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring his idol, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez) As the story of love, passion, betrayal, and sacrifice unfolds in the cell, both men’s minds and lives are forever changed.
Based on the 1993 Broadway hit, this adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman is a complicated movie. Much to my surprise, the “film within a film” concept works, which is a tribute to the writers, director, and actors. It effortlessly blends the personal and political and somehow makes brilliantly colored song and dance numbers work in a gritty story about resistance, love, and courage.
While this is obviously a story about resisting oppression and standing up for the dignity of LGBTQ people, it’s more than that. Kiss of the Spider Woman is a film about finding meaning in life, even amid suffering. As Arregui and Molina come to understand each other’s perspectives – and the themes of Ingrid Luna’s film – their hearts and minds are fundamentally altered, as are the trajectories of their lives.
Whether or not you like this film will largely depend on your views of homosexuality given that Molina’s sexual orientation is key to the plot. There’s a scene of men kissing, a scene of implied gay sex, and a shirtless scene of men having sex with no explicit nudity. Other R-rated content includes 17 sexual expletives, frequent smoking, and violence. The violence can be hard to stomach: men are shot, beaten, and tortured with electrical shocks and are seen with bloody injuries or dying in a pool of blood.
Kiss of the Spider Woman is not a movie for people with weak stomachs, an aversion to homosexuality, or a fondness for dictatorships. It is, however, a finely crafted film. The acting dazzles, the cinematography is flawless, and the script is consistently gripping (even if the parallels are a little too easy to figure out). It’s not often that a musical packs a punch, but this tale of finding meaning amidst a dark and dirty world delivers a knockout blow.
Directed by Bill Condon. Starring Diego Luna, Tonatiuh, Jennifer Lopez. Running time: 128 minutes. Theatrical release October 10, 2025. Updated October 6, 2025
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Kiss of the Spider Woman
Rating & Content Info
Violence: Prisoners are beaten with truncheons and are tortured with electrical shocks. Men are heard screaming and are seen with bloody injuries. A beaten corpse is seen. A man is shot and dies in a pool of blood. A man mentions a past hunger strike. A man’s head is beaten against metal bars. A man grabs another by the neck and pushes him into a wall. A character has scars on his body as a result of mistreatment from prison guards. There’s mention of mythical beasts that terrorize a village and that a person must be sacrificed to protect the village. Men are poisoned: one hallucinates; another suffers pain and stomach distress. There’s mention of prison guards deliberately addicting sick men to morphine. News clips show protesters being attacked by police. A character reminisces about the death of his sister at the hands of police.
Sexual Content: Men kiss. Two men are in bed in dim light and sex is implied but not seen. In another scene, shirtless men have sex without explicit nudity but with groaning and thrusting. There’s coded reference to gay sex and rape. It is suggested that a woman is “frigid”. The side of a woman’s breast is briefly visible in a dress with deep cleavage. A person discusses possible causes of homosexuality. A man acting in a film puts on a woman’s jewelry and sings about how lucky she is to be a woman. In a dream sequence a man dresses up as a woman.
Oral sex is implied between two men but does not occur. A man jokes about orgasm.
Profanity: The script contains at least 17 sexual expletives, a half dozen scatological curses, and a few terms of deity. Several homophobic slurs are used.
Alcohol / Drug Use: Adults frequently smoke cigarettes. A man rolls his own cigarettes. Alcohol is served at a club.
Page last updated October 6, 2025
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There are family-friendly films about the Argentinian Dirty War. In The Penguin Lessons, a British teacher arrives in Buenos Aires in 1974, as the Argentinian military brutally takes over the country. The Catholic Church also struggles to cope with the horrors of the dictatorship: the story of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (later Pope Francis) is told in The Two Popes.