Absolutely lovely movie. Funny, sad, horrifying and breathtaking. This, of course, was based on the musical of Eva Peron's life by Andrew Lloyd Webber, not necessarily on the life of Eva Peron (I recommend searching for biographies if you want accuracy.) But facts aside, this was very entertaining.
Madonna's performance was wonderful. The joke according to the critics was: "She can't say the lines, so let her sing them," which I have to admit was partially true. It's possible she received the Golden Globe due to the fact that she will never again get this type of role. It was obvious she took this role very seriously by taking singing lessons (already late in her musical career,) and did a fabulous singing performance in her role. I can't say that she didn't deserve to get a Golden Globe, because she did. She busted her butt in this movie and it was obvious. She stated that she had quite a bit in common with Eva Peron and was able to bring forth emotions that were obviously real (the death of her own mother from uterine cancer for one,) and integrate them into her performance. Eva's deathbed scene is rarely viewed by myself or friends without shedding a tear. Probably the best scene of all her movie performances -- ever.
Antonio Bandaras, of course, was absolutely perfect as Che. He and Madonna "competed" in their roles in the movie for the spotlight, singing back and forth with criticism, to climax in a showdown duet in a waltz. Antonio gave an incredible performance and in my opinion, pushed himself up to a higher level of caliber as an actor.
First note: Madonna was pregnant throughout the movie and upon close viewing you can kind of tell which scenes were filmed at which time. In some scenes, her abdomen is flat as a board and in earlier scenes, her belly is obviously swelling from pregnancy, including the balcony scenes where it was reported she was in her third trimester and the back of her dress had to be cut in order for her to fit in the dress and not appear as if she were pregnant.
Second note: Do NOT see this movie with theater actors/actresses or any one who is a huge fan of the onstage musical Evita. I happened to see this onscreen with a few friends who were community theater performers and after coming out of the movie was bombarded with plenty of criticism that I felt was entirely unnecessary. Although the onstage performances (by various other actresses) were obviously different from Madonna's, I felt there was no need to compare the two as taking anything to the big screen is always going to cause differences. This movie holds water and if you don't cry during the deathbed scene, then you didn't cry when Old Yeller died.
