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This long-awaited adaptation of the Broadway musical, directed by Alan Parker (
Fame,
The Commitments), features Madonna in her award-winning performance as Eva Peron, the controversial and inspirational First Lady of Argentina, as well as the score from the long-running Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. The story of Peron's rise to power with her husband (Jonathan Pryce) is narrated in song by peasant insurrectionist Che (Antonio Banderas), as Evita's glamour, poise, and ultimate tragedy inspire a nation in the midst of political and social upheaval. The film is a powerful one, visually stunning and epic in its scope, and yet highly emotional in both the well-known songs and the performances. Pryce portrays a deeply flawed man, ruthless and yet devoted to his wife. Banderas is a swashbuckling figure, instilling passion in the heart of Eva Peron. And Madonna gives a strong and commanding performance as a woman who loves her husband and loves her people but must fight the stirring passion inside her. Featuring "You Must Love Me," an Academy Award-winning song written for the film, Evita is vivid and powerful entertainment for people who love musicals for both stage and screen.
--Robert Lane
From The New Yorker
At last, after years of rumor and negotiation-years that have made it almost as mythical as Eva Perón herself-the rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice comes to the screen. The problem is that it remains a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. There are moments when music and lyrics bear only the faintest relation to each other, a tricky state of affairs in a work that is almost bereft of spoken dialogue. This deficit is good news for Madonna, of course-she is barely required to speak or even to act, though she does suggest, rather convincingly, that Evita's outstanding talent was a capacity for growing into an early-model Madonna. The only voices of skepticism belong to Jonathan Pryce, as a sly and troubled Juan Perón, and Antonio Banderas, who prowls through the action as our friendly smoldering narrator. This is a thin tale-poor country girl makes good, and eventually makes the grade as a semi-saint-to which the director, Alan Parker, lends energy with frenzied cutting and vast crowds. The picture blares and blazes at you without letup, and it works best when it's openly theatrical-only when it's over do you sense how little lay beneath the busy surface. It's a movie with hidden shallows. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
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