Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

The absence of live theatre this year has left a gaping, red-curtain-sized hole in my heart. Now that I’m desperately missing one of my favorite things, I rely on film adaptations of musicals to supplement those long-missing endorphins and make that magic more accessible.

New to Netflix, The Prom seemed like it could be the answer to my prayers. The glitz, glam, and star-power definitely acted as a draw, but my hopefulness almost immediately soured upon starting the film. With the perfect formula to succeed, how did this film not only fall flat but become hard to sit through? Too many ill-fitted choices add up to an off-putting and distracting experience.

In this film, four has-beens of the Broadway community (played by Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, James Corden, and Andrew Rannells) attempt to boost their image by becoming the faces of a small-scale social justice movement. They come across the story of Emma (Jo Ellen Pellman), a teen in Indiana whose wish to take her girlfriend to Prom develops into a major source of contention in her community, canceling the event altogether.

Acknowledging that this film draws deeply from the source material, I can’t help but notice that, in true Ryan Murphy fashion, this narrative is packed with dramatic tricks that don’t know when to quit, and barely enough laugh-out-loud one-liners for me to count on one hand. As the group of thespians tries to persuade the town to be more inclusive, what could have been a heartwarming tale descents into cliches and problematic undoings. Most concerning of all, Emma is cast aside and wholly invalidated when she truly deserves to be the heroine of this story.