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Evita

1996, Movie, PG, 135 mins

Evita: Review

EVITA
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Alan Parker's big-budget adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's surpassingly shrewd stage spectacular isn't a big fat failure. But it isn't a resounding success, either: It's an awkward hybrid, neither lavish eye candy nor credible drama. Eva Duarte's (Madonna) ferociously single-minded rise from illegitimate guttersnipe to the wife of Argentine dictator Juan Peron and bona fide idol of the masses is the quintessential rags-to-riches fairy tale. History takes an inevitable back seat to larger-than-life myth, and it would probably play better if it were all brittle glitter and showstopping pizzazz: Realist musicals are a tough act to sell. Shot on Buenos Aires locations and art- directed with a meticulous eye to period authenticity, Parker's film is most successful when it takes its cue from Milos Forman's HAIR, which supports the artificiality of song-driven narrative with choreography grounded in every-day movement. Madonna, who defines the term self-made, plays Eva as the girl with the hungry eyes, a black hole of neediness under a glassy and endlessly mutable facade. As the one-man vox pop saddled with the unenviable task of filling in the history and telling us what to make of each development as it unfolds, Antonio Banderas is thoroughly game: He slips in and out of a dazzling array of costumes designed to shop off his Latin allure, and sells every number for all it's worth. The trouble is that most of them aren't worth much: Stripped of theatrical razzle-dazzle, Webber's dated melodies (please, no more crunchy guitars!) and the thudding banality of Tim Rice's lyrics are brought painfully to the foreground. leave a comment
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