The Age of Commercialism

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Beautiful music. I watch it every few years. Still find it is one of the best.

a surprising film. for the recreation of an image in each detail. for the flavor of great musicals. for Madona and her impressive work. for Jonathan Pryce. and for Banderas. it is a melodramatic story, remembering, in the same measure, the soap operas and the propaganda about Evita. but it is a film who descend from a musical. and this explains everything - the side of fairy tale, the love story, the chance to become, for many viewers, the film of a song. this is all.

I had seen the film poster and had known the three leading stars for years, and I knew one of the songs featuring, I was hoping it would be good, based on the hit Broadway musical by Lord Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Sir Tim Rice, directed by Golden Globe nominated Alan Parker (Bugsy Malone). Basically the film tells the story of Eva "Evita" Duarte de Perón (Golden Globe winning Madonna), as told by storyteller Ché (Golden Globe nominated Antonio Banderas) (named after Ché Guevara), who acts as the view for both the people of the rural community and high society. Young Eva (María Luján Hidalgo) started life in poverty as the daughter of a farmer, but as a teenager she got attached to Latin singer Agustín Magaldi ("Ain't No Doubt" singer Jimmy Nail) and accompanied him to the big city, Buenos Aires, there she rose from being a poor rural girl to being an aspiring actress. Eva becomes more famous through film and radio, eventually moving moving into influential circles within Buenos Aires society, her name soon becomes linked to rising politician Juan Perón (Jonathan Pryce), this quickly creates interest, and soon after marrying Perón is elected President, with the inspirational Eva by his side. As First Lady and Spiritual Leader of the Nation of Argentina, Eva attracts attention like no other woman before or since, hypnotising eighteen million people for seven years with her huge political influence and constant charity work, gaining adoration and love from workers and (Spanish) liberals, but disdain and fear from the military and upper classes. This public and political interest, both positive and negative, being the most hated and the most beloved woman of Argentina, continued until the untimely death of Eva, passing away from cancer at the age of 33, nearly three million people attended the funeral in the streets of Buenos Aires. Also starring Victoria Sus as Doña Juana, Julian Littman as Brother Juan, Olga Merediz as Blanca, Laura Pallas as Elisa Duarte, Julia Worsley as Erminda, Andrea Corr as Perón's Mistress and Peter Polycarpou as Domingo Mercante. With Desparetely Seeking Susan (perhaps Dick Tracy and A League of Their Own also), this is the only enjoyable performance by the "Queen of Pop", the less said about Body of Evidence, Die Another Day (apart from her song) and Swept Away the better, Madonna is very good as she goes through all the triumphs and traumas of the First Lady of Argentina. Pryce as the up and coming President and Banderas as the everyman revolutionary get their moments, but Madonna and most of the songs are the big hook to the film, the best song for me being "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", it does get slightly tedious with hardly any dialogue and mostly all singing, the story of a girl going from nothing to something is alright, and the political stuff didn't grab me, overall it's not a bad musical biography. It won the Oscar for Best Song for "You Must Love Me" (it also won the Golden Globe), and it was nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Sound and Best Film Editing, and it was nominated the BAFTAs for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music for Lloyd Webber and Rice, Best Adapted Screenplay for Alan Parker and Oliver Stone, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Make Up/Hair. Worth watching!

I had first heard about Evita through a parody: "SCTV" did a parody ad for a musical called "Indira" about Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi (portrayed by Andrea Martin) which had her singing "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" with Slim Whitman (Joe Flaherty) warbling the male part before segueing to another song. I then saw the actual commercials for "Evita" with, I think, Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin doing those songs I previously saw spoofed on that "SCTV" spot. So over 30 years later, I finally watched the film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber-Tim Rice musical with Madonna essaying the title role. She's quite good singing songs different from her set list especially on the one original song for the movie-"You Must Love Me". Having her veer from caring to shallow and back was also partly natural especially considering the contradictory versions of Evita's life I read about recounted on Wikipedia after seeing the movie. So, yes, she deserves high praise for taking this role and gets much help from both Antonio Banderas as Che and Jonathan Pryce as Eva's eventual husband, Juan Peron. In summary, I highly enjoyed Evita.