EVITA
A film review by Cooper Redwine
Copyright 1997 Cooper Redwine
Starring: Madonna, Antonio Banderas, Jonathan Pryce, Jimmy Nail. Director: Alan Parker. Screenplay: Alan Parker, Oliver Stone. Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber. Lyrics: Tim Rice. Producers: Alan Parker, Robert Stigwood, Andrew G. Vajna. MPAA Rating: PG (adult themes, mild profanity). Running Time: 135 minutes.
To my way of thinking, EVITA is a good, but not a great, film in which Madonna gives a good, but not a great, performance. The movie looks very corporate to me. It's as though, after the major roles were cast, every artistic decision was made based on the criterion of least risk, and the result is a work of high craft with a muted emotional impact. However, considering that the film stars a controversial leading lady and is based on a popular stage musical about a controversial historical figure, it is no small feat that the makers of EVITA have produced an entertaining and inoffensive movie. Perhaps the outcome is the best that could have been expected under the circumstances, but somehow I had hoped for more.
Many people have seen some stage production of EVITA over the past 18 years, and it seems to me that the sort of review of the movie such a person would like to read is not at all the sort of review desired by someone who hasn't seen the stage show. Hence, I'll break the rest of my review into two parts, with each part tailored to a specific audience.
*** FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SEEN THE STAGE SHOW ***
I found the movie version of EVITA to be highly entertaining, although I enjoyed it slightly less than any of the three stage productions I have seen. It seemed to me that the music was better in the film than in any of the stage productions, but the drama was not so engrossing.
The music is extremely well done in the film. Madonna, with her wonderful voice and graceful moves, is ideally suited to play Eva Peron. Antonio Banderas, in the role of the narrator Che, has an excellent singing voice and gives what I thought was the most appealing performance. Jonathan Pryce is fine as Juan Peron, and Jimmy Nail is adequate as the tango singer who takes the 15-year-old Eva to Buenos Aires.
Considered as drama, however, the film is very uneven. On the one hand, there are some powerful scenes, such as when the big screen shows huge crowds of people and the digital sound system fills the theater with music. On the other hand, most of the interior scenes where individual characters sing are not particularly involving. Somehow the music and drama are not consistently smoothly integrated, and this significantly reduces the overall emotional impact of the film.
The film version of EVITA makes only a few minor changes to the stage show, the most important of which combine to present a kinder, gentler Eva Peron than is usually depicted in stage versions. I went to the movie expecting to see a conniving spitfire who would stop at nothing to acquire fame, wealth, and power. But Madonna's highly restrained portrayal softens Eva's rough edges and left me with the impression of a psychologically needy woman desperately seeking acceptance. This impression is strengthened by the interpolation of a scene early in the film showing how the 7-year-old Eva had been forbidden to attend her father's funeral because of her illegitimacy. And the impression is further reinforced late in the film by having Madonna sing "You Must Love Me," a song not present in the stage show. For me, these changes make Eva Peron a less compelling character and weaken the overall dramatic structure of the story.
There are other minor changes as well, but they don't affect the fabric of the story much. One of these is to take the song "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" away from Peron's mistress and give it to Eva, presumably to better showcase Madonna, who, as with all of the musical numbers, performs the song extremely well. Another change, perhaps motivated by an inability to find a suitable cinematic equivalent, is the deletion of the memorable stage scene where Peron and other military officers are seen in rocking chairs, one of which is removed every time the music stops, until there is only one chair left, occupied by Peron. Finally, in the original stage production, it was claimed that the narrator Che was based on the Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara, but this claim appears to have been dropped in the movie version.
*** FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T SEEN THE STAGE SHOW ***
EVITA is a musical drama where almost all of the dialog is sung, making it a form of opera. However, nearly everything is sung in English, even though the story is set in a Spanish-speaking country. The style of the music might be described as combining elements of 1970s rock, pop Latin rhythms, Broadway show tunes, and folk songs. It's important to understand that for 2 hours 15 minutes the movie EVITA bombards its audience almost continuously with the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, a composer whose best tunes have been enjoyed by millions, but whose music is thought by a sizable number of people to be insufferable.
EVITA is based on a true story. The major events take place in the 1940s and early 1950s in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The central character in the story is the historical figure Eva Peron. (In Spanish, "Evita" is a familiar form of the name "Eva.") Eva was an illegitimate child who was raised in humble surroundings in an obscure town in Argentina. By age 15 she had become the lover of a tango singer named Magaldi, whom she cajoled into taking her to Buenos Aires. In the capital she used her good looks and willingness to establish sexual relationships to achieve success as a model, radio personality, and film actress. Eva eventually became the mistress, and finally the wife, of Juan Peron, a powerful man in Argentina's ruling military regime. When Eva was only 26, Juan ascended to the presidency, and she became a highly visible and politically active First Lady. Adored by the poor and the working class, but hated by the aristocracy and the army, Eva presided over a period during which Argentina regained national pride and enjoyed renewed optimism. But after seven tumultuous years as First Lady, she died of cancer at age 33, plunging the nation into deep national mourning.
Madonna sounds terrific singing the Lloyd Webber music, and her acting in the role of Eva Peron is convincing enough that I was often not conscious of the fact that I was watching Madonna. Yet when I think of great singer-actresses in great roles, I think of Liza Minnelli in CABARET and Barbra Streisand in FUNNY GIRL, but I don't think of Madonna in EVITA. The shortcoming appears to be unrelated to Madonna's capabilities, but rather seems to reflect a decision about the way that Eva Peron should be played. Madonna gives us a restrained, not-very-fiery, not-very-sexy Eva, a sort of an Evita-lite. However, it should be kept in mind that this movie will presumably be shown in Argentina, where part of the population still thinks of Eva Peron as a saint while another part thinks of her as "La Gran Puta" ("The Great Whore").
Aside from the title character, there is only one other major role in EVITA, and that is Che, a student living in Buenos Aires during the Peron regime. This character is essentially a ubiquitous floating theatrical device, at times acting as narrator, at times serving as cynical observer, and at times directly confronting Eva with criticism. In the film Antonio Banderas steals the show by playing Che with Latino swagger and snarling cynicism, and it turns out that Banderas has a pleasing singing voice as well. However, I should perhaps mention that Banderas is a Spaniard whose English is accented, and experience leads me to expect that some Americans will complain that he is hard to understand, although I had no trouble with this.
Except for Eva and Che, there are only two other characters of any consequence: Jonathan Pryce's acting and singing in the supporting role of Juan Peron is excellent, and Jimmy Nail is good enough in the minor role of the tango singer Magaldi, Eva's lover when she was 15 years old.
Although the movie is not completely successful in its portrayal of individual characters, its skillful presentation of visual spectacle almost makes up for this shortcoming. The pageantry surrounding Eva's state funeral is powerful, and the scenes of huge crowds around the Casa Rosada (Argentina's Presidential Palace) are stunning. Yet EVITA does not reach its full potential because of its failure to better integrate the slick music and images on the screen with the natural operatic drama of the story.
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