More Interest in Hearing Madonna Sing Than Argentina Cry

“Evita” is a great, big, true story with great, big themes of ambition, power, fame and social justice. It asks big questions, such as: Do ends justify means? Can people who use each other still love each other? Is it better to burn brightly even if you flame out early?

It offers a rare cinematic look at a strong woman who takes charge of her own life--and death--without apology. It teaches lessons of sexual politics along with history.

It’s a lot to ask of kids who just came to hear teen idol Madonna sing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina.”

“At times it was sort of boring,” said Jenna Lorenz, 12, of Newport Beach. “I didn’t think it was, like, a really good movie.” Still, overall, she liked it, she said.

Her friend Melissa Lally, 13, of Newport Beach was equally unmoved. “I really wasn’t in the mood for it, I guess. I thought it was going to be more uplifting. But it was kind of dragging,” she said.

The musical attracted lots of parents and grandparents who brought the mostly young girls along in hopes of finding a mutually enjoyable movie. But despite Evita’s designer shopping and glamorous make-over, the adults seemed to appreciate it more than the MTV generation.

Melissa and Jenna chuckled at their mothers, who they said were swooning over Antonio Banderas as Che, the free-floating narrator and representative of Argentina’s underclass. “My mom’s like, ‘Oh, he’s so cute. And he can sing!’ ” The girls said they weren’t nearly as impressed.

Catalina Gallegos, 8, of Laguna Beach said that she was not disappointed and that she liked seeing popular singer Madonna in a different role as an actress. “I think she was great. I liked her acting,” she said.

She came with her grandmother, Janice Faust, who told her the movie was “really, really good.” Faust said she cautioned Catalina that they would have to discuss the life of Eva Peron afterward. “Catalina is also a fan of Marilyn Monroe, so we’ll talk about these women and their roles in history and how they might be looked at in different ways in different times,” Faust said.

The movie features some violent explosions and loud rioting in the streets, but nothing that would alarm most older children. The bedroom scenes are relatively mild, but it is clear that Evita sleeps her way to the top, a fact that leads to some explicit name-calling in high places.

The young viewers disagreed on one of the movie’s unanswered questions--did Eva Peron serve poor people once she attained power, or only her own ambition?

Catalina defended Eva, saying she was a true friend of Argentina’s downtrodden. But Melissa said, “She seemed kind of fake to me, like she was doing it for herself.”

Jenna agreed. “In that one song, she talks about how she didn’t ask for fame; it came to her. It seemed sort of phony because she went from boyfriend to boyfriend just to get up to where she was.”