The Movie Version of "Evita"

 Before I say anything else, please know that the movie version of "Evita" is one of the things that I thoroughly enjoy disliking. If you are anything like me, then you know why.

  Now that that is out of the way, I personally believe "Evita" is one of the best musicals of all time. As if you didn't know, 'Evita" tells the story of the Argentinean first lady, Eva Peron, and her rise to power, and eventual death. The absolutely gorgeous score by Andrew Lloyd Webber is the best work he's done and the lyrics by Tim Rice are so beautiful and intricate. It is definitely one of the musicals that has a place in many people's hearts. The movie version features Madonna in the leading role. People like Madonna, she's done movies, she's a singer! She did great right? Unfortunately, she did quite the opposite of great.

    

   Eva Peron is one of the greatest roles written for musical theatre. She is onstage for nearly the entire show, belts super high, and is just a powerful character. Stage greats from Elaine Paige to Patti LuPone to Audra McDonald have played that role. It is a very demanding role that very few people can play that role and even fewer can play that role well. Madonna is not one of those people. Madonna did simply awful as Eva Peron. Her acting was bland and predictable and her singing is lame. She sucked everything that makes that role demanding out of it. Rather than belting out the score, she often took it down the octave and it got boring to listen to her very fast. She was also literally screeching some parts that weren't even that high. The worst part of Madonna's performance is that she lacks the power that is needed to play Eva Peron. She has no presence and displays little to no energy throughout the entire film. There are scenes in the show where you would think that Eva is literally an insane person and with Madonna those parts just go down the toilet. This was not Madonna's role AT ALL.

The real Eva Peron, because Madonna doesn't deserve a picture on my blog

   

   The strongest member of the leading cast is Antonio Banderas as Che, a man who has totally different views from Eva, yet he narrates her story for us. Banderas is a generally strong singer and he plays the role of Che very well, but he is nothing to write home about. Jonathan Pryce and Jimmy  Nail give serviceable performances of Juan Peron and Augustin Magaldi.

  

   I think a lot of the changes they made from the stage show for this movie were rather unnecessary. They made small musical cuts that are only noticeable to big fans of the show and they added flashback scenes at the beginning of the movie. The change that makes me the most angry is that rather than having Peron's Mistress sing "Another Suitcase in Another Hall", they hand the song over to Madonna, simply to give her another single on the soundtrack. That's another thing, almost every single song that Madonna sings sounds like it's a single. For example, at the beginning of the song "Buenos Aires" in the stage show, the orchestra plays a grand piece of music to segue from "Eva, Beware of the City" to "Buenos Aires". In the movie, this music happens but rather than beginning "Buenos Aires", it ends "Eva, Beware of the City" and a new piece of music that sounds like it's  from a pop song begins "Buenos Aires", and that is how the instrumentation is for the entire song. Because God forbid Madonna sing a song that can't sound like it's a single. 

   Upon re-watching this movie to review it, I realized why I cannot stand this movie. Because "Evita" is one of those shows that relies so heavily on the person playing the leading role. Without a brilliant actress playing the role of Eva Peron, the entire thing just goes underneath. Aside from Madonna, the movie version of "Evita" actually isn't as bad as I make it out to be. Director, Alan Parker made a very great decision in having the movie filmed in the style of a biopic. That really worked in the movies favor. The staging and cinematography are excellent. With the exception of a few things, this movie is actually kind of good and if I were fair, I'd just say the movie is fine and move on with life. But, have you met me? I don't do fair.