In one of her better forays into movies, Madonna plays the poor rural girl who became mother figure to Argentina through marriage to President Juan Perón (Jonathan Pryce) in this musical biography based on the long-running stage success. Director Alan Parker eschews explanatory dialogue to link the music, resulting in a curiously airless and enigmatic piece that never involves us in the traumas of Evita or Argentina. Antonio Banderas, meanwhile, co-stars as the everyman revolutionary whose appearance and reappearance in Evita's life is never fully explained. It's probably better to have seen the original first; then you'll know why Evita sings Don't Cry for Me Argentina.

The hit musical based on the life of Evita Duarte, an Argentinian actress who eventually became the wife of Argentinian president Juan Perón, and the most beloved and hated woman in Argentina.